The complete testimony of the fathers of the first three centuries concerning the Sabbath and first day

mm

THE COMPLETE

TESTIMONY OF W F/THERS

OF THE

i-^ '"First Three Centuries

'ONCERNING

XhQ ^afebatti knel ¥k^'%^:

'BIT ELID. J-. n<r. -A-3sr-JDI?,E'VVS,

SECOND EDITION,

STEAM PRESS

OF THE SEVENTH-DAT ADVENTIST PUBLISHING AS80CIAT10H.

BATTLE CREEK, MICH.

1876.

THE COMPLETE

TESTlMOtiY OF THE FjlTHERf

First TJii'ee Cemtwries

COKCKRNING

¥l(c ^^iil3l)klli ki|tl "fir^VlW

BY JEXjX). vJ. IsT. J^ITJDI?.S;«^AriS.

SECOND EDITION.

STEAM TRESS

OF THE SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTIST rUCLlSHlNO A8S0CIAT10r

BATTLE CREEK, MTCIT. :

isro.

0 . ^>'^

—7 i r- ~r\

THE NEW YORK

PUBUC UBRART

4!J2872

ACTOn, LENOX AND
TU.OEN FOUNDATIONS.

R 1910 L

PREFACE.

The testimony for first-day sacredness is very meager
in the Scriptures, as even its own advocates must admit.
But tliey have been wont to supply the deficiency by a
plentiful array of testimonies from the early fathers of
the church. Here, in time past, they have had the field
all to themselves, and they have allowed their zeal for the
change of the Sabbath to get the better of their honesty
and their truthfulness. The first-day Sabbath was abso-
lutely unknown before the time of Constantine. Nearly
one hundred years elapsed after John v/a'a in.yision on
Patmos before the term "Lord's day" -WT^^'kpj^lMcKtcI
the first day. During this time, it was callefl/'the day.'
of the sun," "the first day of the week," and/^the/yigi^/h
day." The first writers w^ho gave it thenq3ne.'(/f'''iiOrd'3 >
day," state the remarkable fact that in their 'jViJlgn^entj'
the true Lord's day consists of every day of a Christian s'
life, a very convincing proof that they did not give this
title to Sunday because John had so named it on Patmos.
In fact, no one of those who give this title to Sunday
ever assigned as a reason for so doing that it was thus
called by John. Nor is there any intimation in one of
the fathers that first-day observance was an act of obedi-
ence to the fourth commandment, nor one clear state-
ment that ordinary labor on that day was sinful. In or-
der to show these facts, I have undertaken to give every

(5)

IV PREFACE.

testimony of every one of the fatlierSj prior to a. d. 325,
who mentions either the Sabbath or the first da; Though
some of these quotations are comparatively unimportant,
others are of very great value, I have given them all,
in order that the reader may actually possess their entire
testimony. I have principally followed the translation of
the ^' Ante-Nicene Christian Library," and have in every
case made use of first-day translations. The work has
been one of great labor to me, and I trust will be found
of much profit to the candid reader.

J. N. Andre wa.
Lancaster, Mass., Jan. 1, 1873.

PK.t;F4CE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

;.* Ik.^hls piiiVioh every quotation has been carefully com-

*pare.(\ .witJl* the vv^orks of the fathers from which they

■ wdi7j*talj:cn. '• A few minor errors have been detected, but

•nqne.of .'ih\p.or%,nce. The work is commended to the at-

.Ucjtjtiqnlo^'Cjfticlid inquirers with the prayer that God will

make it instrumental in opening the eyes of many to the

truth concerning his holy day. J. N. A.

Neucltalel, Switzerland, April 7, 187G.

TESTIMONY OF THE FATHERS.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTOIIY STATEMENT.

With respect to the Sabbath, the religious
world may be divided into three classes : —

1. Those who retain the ancient seventh-day
Sabbath.

2. Those who observe the first-day Sabbath.

3. Those who deny the existence of any
Sabbath,* :_^

It is inevitable that controversy.' .*bbuld exist
between these parties. Their first appeal' Is tO"
the Bible, and this should decide the oas^e ; ' fcrit
reveals man's whole duty. But the.Yeihe^n'ejp-^
peal by the second party, and soraetim^,:^; Id^ i'iie^
third, to another authority, the earl}?' 'fiath'ep'of
the church, for the decision of the question.' ' *

The controversy stands thus : The second and
third parties agree with the first that God did
anciently require the observance of the seventh
day ; but both deny the doctrine of the first, that
he still requires men to hallow that day ; the
second asserting that he has changed the Sabbaih

* Those who compose this class are unanimous in the view
that the Sunday festival was established bv the church ; and
they all agree in making it their day of worship, but not for the
same reason ; for, while one part of them devoutly accept the
institution as the Lord's day on the authority of the church, the
other part make it their day for worship simply because it is the
most convenient day.

0 TESTIMONY OF THE FATHERS.

to the first day of the week ; and the third de-
claring that he has totally abolished the institu-
tion itself.

The first class plant tliemselves upon the plain
letter of the law of God, and adduce those
scriptures which teach the perpetuity and im-
mutability of the moral law, and which show
that the new covenant does not abrogate that
law, but puts it into the heart of every Christian.
The second class attempt to prove the change
of the Sabbath by quoting those texts which
mention the first day of the week, and also those
which are said to refer to it. The first day is,
on such authority, called by this party the
Christian Sabbath, and the fourth commandment
is used by them to enforce this new Sabbath.

The third class adduce those texts which

aR?ei.;t :th,Ci '.(Jlssolution of the old covenant ; and

'J:h63(5'^hicli' teach the abolition of the ceremonial

^aw/.with' ail its distinction of days, as new

: mfj^Ak,^ feafet days, and annual sabbaths ; and also

\tkb.46\te3,c\\s '-which declare that men cannot be

\j uXtifi^-d' h'Y' that law which condemns sin ; and

.'ti'Om' all* these contend that the law and the

Sabbath are both abolished.

But the first class answer to the second that
the texts which they bring forward do not meet
the case, inasmuch as they say nothing respecting
the change of the Sabbath ; and that it is not
honest to use the fourth commandment to enforce
the observance of a day not therein commanded.
And the third class assent to this answer as
truthful and just.

To the position of the third class, the first
make this answer : That the old covenant was
made l)ctween God and his people concerni'iirj

INTllODUCTOllY STATEMENT. 7

his law ;* that it ceased because the people failed
in its conditions, the keeping of the command-
ments ; that the new covenant does not abrogate
the law of God, but secures obedience to it by
putting it into the heart of every Christian ; that
there are two s^^stems of law, one being made up
of typical and ceremonial precepts, and the other
consisting of moral principles only; that those
texts v/hich speak of the abrogation of the hand-
writing of ordinances and of the distinction in
meats, drinks, and days, pertain alone to this
shadowy system, and never to the moral law
which contains the Sabbath of the Lord ; and
that it is not the fault of the jaw, but of sinners,
that they are condemned by it; and that justiti-
cation being attained only by the sacrifice of
Christ as a sin offering, is in itself a most power-
ful attestation to the perpetuity, immutability,
and perfection, of that law which reveals sin.
And to this answer the second class heartily
assent.

But the second class have something further to
say. The Bible, indeed, fails to assert the change
of the Sabbath, but these persons have something
else to offer, in their estimation, equally as good
as the Scriptures. The early fathers of the
church, who conversed with the apostles, or who
conversed with some who had conversed with
them, and those who followed for several genera-
tions, are by this class presented as authority,
and their testimony is used to establish the so-
called Christian Sabbath on a firm basis. And
this is what they assert respecting the fathers :

*Such is the exact nature of the covenant mentioned in Ex.
21 :S; and Paul, in Ilcb. 0:lS-2<>, quotes this yuissajjo, calling
the covenant therein mentioned "the lirst testament," or covenant.

« TESTIMONY OF THE FATHERS.

TImt tbey distinctly teach tlic chan);^o of the
Sabbatli from the seventh to the first day of tlie
week, and that the lirst day is by divine author-
ity the Christian Sabbath.

But the third class squarely deny this state-
ment, and affirm that the fathers held the Sab-
bath as an institution made for the Jews when
they came out of Egypt, and that Christ abolished
it at his death. They also assert that the fathers
held the first day, not as a Sabbath in which
men must not labor lest they break a divine
precept, but as an ecclesiastical institution, which
they called the Lord's day, and which was the
proper day for religious assemblies because
custom and tradition thus concurred. And so
the third class answer the second by an explicit
denial of its alleged facts. They also aim a blow
at the first by the assertion that the early fathers
taught the no-Sabbath doctrine, which must
therefore be acknowledged as the real doctrine of
the New Testament.

And now the first class respond to these con-
flicting statements of the second and the third.
And here is their response : —

1. That our duty respecting the Sabbath, and
respecting every other thing, can be learned only
from the Scriptures.

2. That the first three hundred years after the
apostles nearly accomplished the complete devel-
opment of the great apostasy, which had com-
menced even in Paul's time ; and this age of apos-
tatizing cannot be good authority for making
changes in the law of God.

3. That only a small proportion of the minis-
ters and teachers of this period have transmitted
any writings to our time ; and these are generally

INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT. [)

fragmei;its of the original works, and tliey have
come down to us mainly through the hands of
the Romanists, who have never scrupled to de-
stroy or to corrupt that which witnesses against
themselves, whenever it has been in their power
to do it.

4. Bat inasmuch as these two classes, viz.,
those who maintain the first-day Sabbath, and
those who deny the existence of any Sabbath,
both appeal to these fathers for testimony with
which to sustain themselves, and to put down
the first class, viz., those who hallow the ancient
Sabbath, it becomes necessary that the exact
truth respecting the writings of that age, which
now exist, should be shown. There is but one
method of doing this which will effectually end
the controversy. This is to give every one of
their testimonies concerning the Sabbath anel
first-day in their own words. In doing this the
following facts will appear : —

1. That in some important particulars there is
a marked disagreement on this subject among
them. For while some teach that the Sabbath
originated at creation and shoulel be hallowed
even now, others assert that it began with the
fall of the manna, and ended with the death of
Chiist. And while one class represent Christ as
a violator of the Sabbath, another class represent
him as sacredly hallowing it, and a third class
declare that he certainly did violate it, and that
he certainly never did, but always observed it !
Some of them also affirm that the Sabbath was
abolished, and in other places positively affirm
that it is perpetuated and made more sacred than
it formerly was. Moreover, some assert that the
ten commandments arc absolutely abolished,

10 TESTIMONY OF THE FATHERS.

whilst others declare that they are perpetuated,
and are the tests of Christian character in this
dispensation. Some call the day of Christ's res-
urrection the first day of the week ; others call it
the day of the sun, and the eighth day ; and a
larger number call it the Lord's day, but there
are no examples of this application till the close
of the second century. Some enjoin the observ-
ance of both the Sabbath and the first day, while
others treat the seventh day as despicable.

2. But in several things of great importance
there is perfect unity of sentiment. They always
distinguish between the Sabbath and the first
day of the week. The change of the Sabbath
fi-om the seventh day to the iirst is never men-
tioned in a single instance. They never term the
first day the Christian Sabbath, nor do they treat
it as a Sabbath of any kind. Nor is there a sin-
gle declaration in any of them that labor on the
first day of the week is sinful ; the utmost that
can be found being one or two vague expressions
which do not necessarily have any such sense.

3. Many of the fathers call the first day of the
week the Lord's day. But none of them claim
fjr it any scriptural authcrity, and some ex-
pressly state that it has none whatever, but rests
solely upon custom and tradition.

4. But the writings of the fathers furnish pos-
itive proof that the Sabbath was observed in the
Christian church dov/n to the time when they
wrote, and by no inconsiderable part of that
body. For some of them expressly enjoined its ob-
servance, and even some of tliose who held that
it was abolished speak of Christians who observ-
ed it, whom they would con>sent to fclluw.ship if
they would not make it a test.

INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT. 11

5. And now mark the work of apostasy : This
work never begins by thiTisting out God's insti-
tutions, but always by bringing in those of men
and at first only asking that they may be toler-
ated, while yet the ones ordained of God are sa-
credly observed. This, in time, being effected, the
next effort is to make them equal with the divine.
When this has been accomplished, the third sta^o
of the process is to honor them above those di-
vinely commanded ; and this is speedily succeeded
by the fourth, in which the divine institution is
thrust out Avith contempt, and the whole ground
given to its human rival.

G. Before the first three centuries had expired,
apostasy concerning the Sabbath had, with many
of the fathers, advanced to the third stage, and
with a considerable number had already entered
upon the fourth. For those fathers who hallow
the Sabbath do generally associate with it the
festival called by them the Lord's day. And
though they speak of the Sabbath as a divine in-
stitution, and never speak thus of the so-called
Lord's day. they do, nevertheless, give the greater
honor to ttiis human festival. So far had the
apostasy progressed before the end of the third
century, that only one thing more was needed to
accomplish the work as far as the Sabbath was
concerned, and this w^as to discard it, and to hon-
or the Sunday festival a]one. Some of the fa-
thers had already gone thus far; and the work
became general within five centuries after Christ.

7. The modern church historians make very
conflicting statements respecting the Sabbath
during the first centuries. Some pass over it al-
most in silence, or indicate that it Avas, at most,
observed only by Jewish rhristio.ns. Others,

] :j tk.stimox\' 01' titi-: i'atiikii.s,

however, testify to its general observance by the
Gentile C^hristians ; yet some of these assert that
the Sabbath was observed as a matter of expedi-
ency and not of moral obligation, because those
who kept it did not believe the commandments
were binding. (This is a great error, as will ap-
pear in due time.) What is said, however, by
these modern historians is comparatively unim-
portant inasmuch as their sources of information
were of necessity the very writings which are
about to be quoted.

8. In the following pages will be found, in their
own words, every statement * which the fathers
of the first three centuries make by way of de-
fining their views of the Sabbath and first-day.
And even when they merely allude to either day
in giving their view^s of other subjects, the nat-
ure of the allusion is stated, and, where practica-
ble, the sentence or phrase containing it is quoted.
The different writings are cited in the order in
which they purport to have been written. A
considerable number were not written by the
persons to whom they were ascribed, but at a
later date. As these have been largely quoted
by first-day writers, they are here given in full.
And even these writings possess a certain histor-
ical value. For though not written by the ones
whose names they bear, they are known to have
been in existence since the second or third cent-
ury, and they give some idea of the views which
then prevailed.

First of all let us hear the so-called "Apostolical

* The case of Origen is a partial exception. Not all his works
have becu accessible to the writer, but sufhcicnt of them have
been exaniiued to lay before the reader a just represuMitution of
liis doctrine.

ArOSTOLICAL CONyTITUTIuNS. 13

Constitutions." These were not the work of the
apostles, but they were in existence as early as
the third century, and were then very generally
believed to express the doctrine of the apostles.
They do therefore furnish important historical tes-
timony to the practice of the church at that time.
Mosheim in his Historical Commentaries, Cent. 1,
sect. 51, speaks thus of these " Constitutions " : —

"The matter of this work is unquestionably ancient ;
since the manners and discipline of which it exhibits a
view are those which prevailed amongst the Christiana of
the second and third centuries, especially those resident
in Greece and the oriental regions."

Of the " Apostolical Constitutions," Guericke's
Church History speaks thus : —

'' This is a collection of ecclesiastical statutes purport-
ing to be the work of the apostolic age, but in reality
formed gradually in the second, third, and fourth centu-
ries, and is of much value in reference to the history of
polity, and Christian archiuology generally." — Ancient
Church, p. 212.

CHAPTER II.

TESTIMONY OF THE APOSTOLICAL CONSTITUTIONS.

'' Have before thine eyes the fear of God, and always
remember the ten commandments of God, — to love the
one and only Lord God with all thy strength ; to give no
heed to idols, or any other beings, as being lifeless gods,
or irrational beings or daemons. Consider the manifold
workmanship of God, which received its beginning through
Christ. Thou shalt observe the Sabbath, on account of
Him who ceased from his work of creation, but ceased
not from his work of providence : it is a rest for medita-
tion of the law, not for idlencs.s of the hands." 13uok ii. ,
sect. 4, par. *>C».

11 TESTIMONY 01" THE FATHERS.

This is sound Sabbatarian doctrine. But apos-
tasy had begun its work in the establishment of
the so-called Lord's day, which was destined in
time to drive out the Sabbath. The next men-
tion of the Sabbath also introduces the festival
called Lord's day, but the reader will remember
that this was written, not in the first century,
but the third : —

" Let your judicatures he held on the second day of
the week, that if any controversy arise about your sen-
tence, having an interval till the Sabbath, you may be
able to set the controversy right, and to reduce those to
peace who have the contests one with another against the
Lord's day." Book ii., sect. 0, par. 47.

By the term Lord's day the first day of the
week is here intended. But the writer does not
call the first day the Sabbath, that term being
applied to the seventh day.

In section 7, paragrapli 50, Christians are commanded
to assemble for worship ''every day, morning and even-
ing, singing psalms and praying in the Lord's house : in
the morning saying the sixty-second psalm, and in the
evening the hundred and fortieth, but principally on the
Sabbath day. And on the day of our Lord's resurrec-
tion, which is the Lord's day, meet more diligently, send-
ing praise to God that made the universe by Jesus and
sent him to us." ''Otherwise what apology will he make
to God who does not assemble on that day to hear the
saving word concerning the resurrection, on which wo
pray tlirice standing, in memory of him who arose in three
days, in which is ]:)erformed the reading of the prophets,
the preaching of the gospel, the oblation of the sacrifice,
the gift of the holy food."

The writer of these " Constitutions " this time
gives the first day great prominence, thougli still
honoring the Sabbath, and by no means giving
that title to Sunday. But in book v., section 2,
paragraph 10, we have a singular testimony to

APOSTOI.ICAT. CONSTITUTIONS. IT)

the manner in which Sunday was spent. Thus
the writer says :--;-

"Isow we exhort you, brethren and fellow-servants, to
avoid vain talk and obscene discourses, and jestings,
drunkenness, lasciviousness, luxury, unbounded passions,
witli foolish discourses, since we do not permit you so
much as on the Lord's days, which are days of joy, to
speak or act anything unseemly."

From this it appears that the so-called Lord's
day was a day of greater mirth than the other
days of the week. In book v., section 3, para-
graph 14, it is said : —

'^ But when the first day of the week dawned he arose
from the dead, and fulfilled those thintfs which before
his passion he foretold to us, saying : ' The Son of man
must continue in the heart of the earth three days and
three nights.' "

In book v., section 3, paragraph 15, the w^riter
names the days on which Christians should fast: —

'^ But he commanded us to fast on the fourth and sixth
days of the week ; the former on account of his being be-
trayed, and the latter on account of his passion. But
he appointed us to break our fast on the seventh day at
the cock- crowing, but to fast on the Sabbath day. Not
that the Sabbath day is a day of fasting, being the rest
from the creation, but because we ought to fast on this
one Sabbath only, while on this day the Creator was under
the earth."

In paragraph 17, Christians are forbidden to
" celebrate the day of the resurrection of our Lord
on any other day than a Sunday." In paragraph
18, they are again charged to fast on that one Sab-
bath, which comes in connection with the anni-
versary of our Lord's death. In paragraph 19,
the first day of the week is four times called the
Lord's day. The period of 40 days from his res-
urrection to his ascension is to 1)C observed. The

16 TESTIMONY OF THE FATHERS.

anniversary of Christ's resurrection is to bo cel-
ebrated by the supper.

" And let this be an everlasting ordinance till the con-
summatiou of the world, until the Lord come. For to
Jews the Lord is still dead, but to Christians he is risen :
to the former, by their unbelief ; to the latter, by their
full assurance of faith. For the hope in him is immortal
and eternal life. After eight days let there be another
feast observed Avith honor, the eighth day itself, on which
he gave me, Thomas, who was hard of belief, full assur-
ance, by showing me the print of the nails, and the
wound made in his side by the spear. And again, from
the first Lord's day count forty days, from the Lord's
day till the fifth day of the week, and celebrate the feast
of the ascension of the Lord, whereon he finished all his
dispensation and constitution," etc.

The things here commanded can come only
once in a year. These are the anniversary of
Christ's resurrection, and of that day on which
he appeared to Thomas, and these were to be
celebrated by the supper. The people were also
to observe the day of the ascension on the fifth
day of the week, forty days from his resurrection,
on which day he finished his work. In para-
graph 20, they are commanded to celebrate the
anniversary of the Pentecost.

"But after ten days from the ascension, which from
the first Lord's day is the fiftieth day, do ye keep a great
festival ; for on that day, at the third hour, the Lord
Jesus sent on us the gift of the Holy Ghost."

This was not a weekly but a yearly festival.
Fasting is also set forth in this paragraph, but
every Sabbath except the one Christ lay in the
tomb is exempted from this fast, and every so-
called Lord's day : —

" We enjoin you to fast evcrj^ fourth day of the week,
and every day of the preparation [the sixth day], and the
surplusage of your fast bestow upon the needy ; every

APOSTOLICAL CONSTITUTIONS. 17

Sabbath clay excepting one, and every Lord's day, Iiold
your solemn assemblies, and rejoice ; for he will be guilty
of sin who fasts on the Lord's day, being the day of the
resurrection, or during the time of Pentecost, or, in gen-
eral, who is sad on a festival day to the Lord. For on
them we ought to rejoice, and not to mourn."

This writer asserts that it is a sin to fast or
mourn on Sunday, but never intimates that it is
a sin to labor on that day when not engaged in
worship. We shall next learn that the decalogue
is in agreement with the law of nature, and that
it is of perpetual obligation : —

In book vi., section 4, paragraph 19, it is said : ''He
gave a plain law to assist the law of nature, such an
one as is pure, saving, and holy, in which his own
name was inscribed, perfect, which is never to fail, being
complete in ten commands, unspotted, converting souls."

In paragraph 20 it is said : " Xow the law is tlie deca-
logue, which the Lord promulgated to them with an au-
dible voice."

In paragraph 22 he says : " You therefore are bleFsed
who are delivered from the curse. For Christ, the Son
of God, by his coming has confirmed and completed the
law, but has taken away the additional precepts, although
not all of them, yet at least the more grievous ones ; hav-
ing confirmed the former, and abolished the latter."
And he further testifies as follows: "And besides, be-
fore his coming he refused the sacrifices of the people,
while they frequently off"ered them, when they sinned
against him, and thought he was to be appeased by sacri-
fices, but not by repentance."

For this reason the writer truthfully testifies
that God refused to accept their burnt- offerings
and sacrifices, their new moons and their Sabbaths.

In book vi., section 23, he says : ''He who had com-
manded to honor our parents, was himself subject to them.
He who had commanded to keep the Sabbath, by resting
thereon for the sake of meditating on the laws, has now
commanded us to consider of the law of creation, and of
providence every day, and to return thanks to God."

TcalimouY ol' the i'alheis. 2

18 TESTDIONY OF THE FATHERS.

This savors somewhat of the doctrine that all
days are alike. Yet this cannot be the meaning ;
for in hook vii., section 2, paragraph 23, he enjoins
the observance of the Sabbath, and also of the
Lord's-day festival, but specifies one Sabbath in
the year in which men should fast. 'Thus he
says : —

''But keep tlie Sabbath, and the Lord's-day festival ; be-
cause the former is the memorial of the creation, and the
latter, of the resurrection. But there is one only Sabbath
to be observed by you in the whole year, which is that of
our Lord's burial, on which men ought to keep a fast,
but not a festival. For inasmuch as the Creator was
then under the earth, the sorrow for IiIdi is more forcible
than the joy for the creation ; for the Creator is more
honorable by nature and dignity than his own creatures."

In book vii., section 2, paragraph 30, he says : " On the
day of the resurrection of the Lord, that is, the Lord's
day, assemble yourselves together, without fail, giving
thanks to God," etc.

In paragraph 86, the writer brings in the Sabbath
again : " 6 Lord AlmJghty, thou hast created the v/orld
by Christ, and hast appointed the Sabbath in memory
thereof, because that on tJiat day thou hast made us rest
fruvi our ii'orJcs, for the meditation upon tliy laAva."

In the same paragraph, in speaking of the
resurrection of Christ, the writer says : —

' ' On which account we solemnly assemble to celebrate
the feast of the resurrection on the Lord's day," etc. In
tlie same paragraph he speaks again of the Sabbath :
" Thou didst give them the law or decalogue, which was
pronounced by thy voice and written with thy hand.
Thou didst enjoin the observation of the Sabbath, not
affording them an occasion of idleness, but an opportu-
nity of inety, for their knowledge of thy power, and the
prohibition of evils ; having limited them as within an
holy circuit for the sake of doctrine, for the rejoicing upon
the seventh period."

In this paragraph he also states his views of

APOSTOLICAL C'UXSTIT'JTlOIfS. lij

tlic Sabbath, and of the day which ho calls the
Lord',3 day, giving the precedence to the latter : —

• ^ On this account he permitted men every Sabbath to
rest, tliat so no one might be willing to send one word
out of his mouth in anger on the day of the Sabbath.
For the Sabbath is the ceasing of the creation, the com-
pletion of the world, the inquiry after laws, and the
grateful praise to God for the blessings he has bestowed
upon men. All which the Lord's day excels, and shows
the Mediator himself, the Provider, the Law-giver, the
Cause of the resurrection, the First-born of the whole
creation," etc. And he adds : '' So that the Lord's day
commands us to olFer unto thee, O Lord, thanksgiving for
all. For this is the grace afforded by thee, which on
account of its greatness has obscured all other blessings."

It is certainly noteworthy that the so-called
Lord's day, for which no divine v/arrant is pro-
duced, is here exalted above the Sabbath of the
Lord notwithstanding the Sabbath is acknowl-
edged to be the divine memorial of the creation,
and to be expressly enjoined in the decalogue,
which the writer declares to bo of perpetual ob-
ligation. Tested by his own principles, he had
far advanced in apostasy ; for he held a human
festival more honorable than one which he ac-
knowledged to be ordained of God; and only a
single step remained ; viz., to set aside the com-
mandment of God for the ordinance of man.

In book viii., section 2, paragraph 4, it is said,
when a bishop has been chosen and is to bo
ordained, —

" Let the people assemble, wdth ilio presbytery and
bishops that are present, on the Lord's day, and let them
give their consent."

In book viii., section 4, paragraph 33, occurs the
final mention of these two days in the so-called
"Apostolical Constitutions."

20 TESTIMONY OF THE FATHERS.

" Let i.lie slaves work five days ; but on the Sabbath
day and the Lord's day let them have leisure to go to
church for instruction in piety. We have said that the
Sabbath is on account of the creation, and the Lord's day,
of the resurrection."

To this may be added the G4th Canon of the
Apostles, which is appended to the " Consti-
tutions " : —

"If any one of the clergy be found' to fast on the
Lord's day, or on the Sabbath day, excepting one only,
let him be deprived ; but if he be one of the laity, let
him be suspended."

Every mention of the Sabbath and first-day
in that ancient book called "Apostolical Consti-
tutions" is now before the reader. This book
comes down to us from the third century, and
contains what was at that time very generally
l)clieved to be the doctrine of the apostles. It is
therefore valuable to us, not as authority respect-
ing the teaching of the apostles, but as giving
us a knowledge of the views and practices which
prevailed in the third century. At the time
these " Constitutions " were put in writing, the
ten commandments were revered as the immuta-
ble rule of right, and the Sabbath of the Lord
was by many observed as an act of obedience to
the fourth counjiaiidment. and as the divine me-
morial of the creation. But the first-day festival
had already attained such strength and influence
as to clearly indicate that ere long it would
claim the entire ground. But observe that the
Sabbath and the so-called Lord's day are treated
as distinct institutions, and that no hint of the
change of the Sabl)ath to the first day of the
week is ever once given. The "Apostolical Con-
stitutions" are cited firi^t, not because written by

EriSTLE OF liARXACAS, '21

ihii aposUos, but becaii.so of tlicir title. For tlio
same reason the so-called Epistle of Barnabas is
quoted next, not because written by that apostle,
for the proof is ample that it was not, but be-
cause it is often quoted by first-day writers as
the words of the apostle Barnabas. It was in
existence, however, as early as the middle of the
second centur}^, and, like the " Apostolical Con-
stitutions," is of value to us in that it gives some
clue to the opinions which prevailed in the re-
gion where the writer lived, or at least which
were held by his party.

CHAPTER III.

Barnabas — Pliny — Ignatius — The Church a( Smyrna — The
Epistle (o Diognehis — Recognitions of Clement — .Syriac
Documents concerning Edessa.

TESTIMONY OF THE EPISTLE OF EARNAT3AS.

In his second chapter this writer speaks thus: —

" For he hath revealed to us by all the prophets that
he needs neither sacrifices, nor burnt-offerings, nor obla-
tions, saying thus, ' What is the multitude of your sacri-
fices unto me, saith the Lord ? I am full of burnt-offer-
ings, and desire not the fat of lambs, and the blood of
bulls and goats, not when je come to appear before me :
for who hath required these things at your hands ? Tread
no more my courts, not though ye bring with you fine
flour. Incense is a vain abomination unto me, and your
new moons and Sabbaths I cannot endure.' He has
therefore abolished these things, that the new law of our
Lord Jesus Christ, which is without the yoke of neces-
sity, might have a human oblation."

The writer may have intended to assert the
abolition of the sacrifices only, as this was his

9 7

TESTIMONY OF THE FATHERS.

special theme in this place. But he presently
asserts the abolition of the Sabbath of the Lord.
Here is his fifteenth chapter entire : —

"Farther, also, it is written concerning the Sabbath
in the decalogue which [the Lord] spoke, face to face, to
l^loses on Mount Sinai, ' And sanctify ye the Sabbath of
the J^jvd with clcnn hands and :\ ptiro heart.' And ho
;oyd in smother phice, 'If my iiona ];- - '•..".— ;.
then will I canao my mercy to rest \..
Sabbath is mentioned at the beginning oi the ci\. 11.0:1
(thus] : ' And God made in six days tlic vv'orks of his liands,
and made an end on the seventh day, and rested on it,
and sanctified it.' Attend, my children, to the moaniiii;
of this expression, 'lie linished in six days.' This im-
plieth thjit tl:e Lord will finish all things in &ix thousand
years, for a day is with him a thousand years. And he
iiimself testifieth, saying, ' Behold to-day will be as a
thousand years.' Therefore, my children, in six daj^-?,
that is, in six thousand ycarr., all things will bo finished.
' And he rested on the seventh day.' This meaneth :
when his Son, coming [again], shall destroy the time of
the wicked man, and judge the ungodly, and change the
sun, and the moon, and the stars, then shall he truly
rest on the seventh day. Moreover, he says, 'Thou
Siialt sanctify it with |)ure hands and a pure heart.' If,
therefore, any one can now sanctify the day which God
hath sanctilied, except he is pure in heart in all thing??,
we arc deceived. Behold, therefore : certainly then one
properly resting sanctiQes it, when we ourselves, having
icceived the promise, wickedness no longer existing, and
all things having been made new by the Lord, shall bo
able to work righteousness. Then we shall be able to
sanctify it, having been first sanctified ourselves. Fur-
ther, he says to them, * Your new moons and your Sab-
baths I cannot endure.' Ye perceive hovf he speaks:
Your present Sabbaths are not acceptable to me, but that
is which I have made [namely this], when, giving rest to
all things, I shall make a beginning of the eighth day,
Ihat is, a beginning of another v/orld. Wherefore, also,
we keep the eighth day with joyfnlness, the day, also,
on which Jesus rose again from the dead. And when ho
had manifested himself, he agcendcd into the heavens."

JTcrc are some very .sti'anp^o specimens of rca-

EPISTLE OF BARNABAS. 23

soning. The substance of what he says relative
to the present observance of the Sabbath appears
to be this : No one " can now sanctify the day
which God hath sanctified except he is pure iu
heart in all things." But this cannot be the case
until the present world shall pass awa}^, " when
we ourselves, having received the promise, v/ick-
cdnesy no longer existing, and all tilings having
been made neiu by the Loj:d, shall be able to work
righteousness. Then we shall be able to sanctify
it, having been first sanctified ourselves." Meii
cannot therefore keep the Sabbath while this
wicked world lasts. And so he says, " Your pres-
ent Sabbaths are not acceptable to me." That
is to say, the keeping of the day which God has
sanctified is not possible in such a wicked world.
But though the seventh day cannot nov/ be kept,
the eighth day can be, and ought to be, because
when the seventh thousand years are past there
will be at the beginning of the eighth thousand
the nevv^ creation. So the persons represented
by this writer, do not attempt to keep the sev-
enth day which God sanctified, for that is too
pure to keep in this world, and can only be kept
after the Sa.viour comes at the commencement of
the seventh thousand years ; but they " keep the
eighth day with joyfulness, the day also on whicli
Jesus rose again from the dead." Sunday, which
God never sanctified, is exactly suitable for ob-
servance in the world as it now is. But the
sanctified seventh day *' wq shall be able to sanc-
tify " when all things have been made new. If
our first- day friends think these words of some
unknown writer of the second century more
honorable to tlie first day of tlie week than to
the seventh, they arc welcome to them. Had

til TKSTI.MONV OF THE FATHERS.

the wi-iter sa-'ul, " It is easier to keep Sunday tlian
the Sabbath while the world is so wicked," ho
would have stated the truth. But when in sub-
stance he says, " It is more acceptable to God to
keep a common than a sanctified day while men
are so sinful," he excuses his disobedience by ut-
tering a falsehood . Several things however should
be noted : —

1. In this quotation we have the reasons of a
no-Sabbath man for keeping the iestival of Sun-
day. It is not God's commandment, for there
was none for that festival ; but the day God hal-
lowed being too pure to keep while the world
is so wicked, Sunday is therefore kept till the
return of the Lord, and then the seventh day
shall be truly sanctified by those who now regard
it not.

2. But this writer, though saying what he is
able in behalf of the first day of the week, applies
to it no sacred name. He does not call it Chris-
tian Sabbath, nor Lord's day, but simply "the
eighth day," and this because it succeeds the sev-
enth day of the week.

3. It is also to be noticed that he expressly
dates the Sabbath from the creation.

4. The change of the Sabbath was unknown
to this writer. He kept the Sunday festival, not
because it was purer than the sanctified seventh
day, but because the seventh day was too pure to
keep while the world is so wicked.

TESTIMONY OF THE EPISTLE OF PLINY.

Pliny was the E-oman governor of Bithynia in
the years 103 and 104. He wrote a letter to the
empei'or Trajan, in which he states what he had

EPISTLE OF PLINY. 25

Icarnftd of the Christians as the result of examiii-
iiig them at his tribunal : —

" They aflfirmed that the whole of their guilt or error
was, that they met on a certain stated day [dato die], be-
fore it was light, and addressed themselves in a form of
prayer to Christ, as to some God, binding themselves by
a solemn oath, not for the purposes of any wicked design,
but never to commit any fraud, theft, or adultery ; never
to falsify their word, nor deny a trust when they should
be called upon to deliver it up ; after which it was their
custom to separate, and then reassemble to eat in com-
mon a harmless meal." — Culcman's Ancient Christianiiy,
chap. i. sect. 1.

The letter of Pliny is often referred to as though
it testified that the Christians of Bithynia cele-
brated the first day of the week. Yet such is by
no means the case, as the reader can plainly see.
Coleman says of it (page 528) : —

''This statement is evidence that these Christians kept
a day as holy time, but whether it was the last, or the
first day of the week, does not appear."

Such is the judgment of an able, candid, first-
day church historian of good repute as a scholar.
An anti-Sabbatarian writer of some repute speaks
thus : —

''As the Sabbath day appears to have been quite as
commonly observed at this date as the Sun's day (if not
even more so), it is just as probable that this ' stated
day ' referred to by Pliny was the seventh day, as that it
was i\\e first day ; though the latter is generally taken for
granted." — Ohligation of the Sahhath, p. 800.

Every candid person must acknowledge that it
is unjust to represent the letter of Pliny as testi-
fying in behalf of the so-called Christian Sab-
bath. Next in order of time come the reputed
epistles of Ignatius.

1*0 TESTIMONY OF THE FATIIEIIS.

TESTIMONY OF THE EPISTLES OF IGNATIUS.

Of the iifteen epistles s^scribed to Ignatius,
eiglifc are, by universal consent, accounted spuri-
ous; and eminent scholars have questioned the
genuineness of the remaining seven. There are,
however, two forms to these seven, a lunger and
a shorter, and while .some doubt exists as to tlie
shorter form, the longer form is by common con-
sent ascribed to a later age than that of Ignatius.
But the epistle to the Magnesians, which exists
both in the longer and in the shorter form, is the
one from whicli first-day writers obtain Ignatius*
testimony in behalf of Sunday, and they quote
for this hoVa these forms. We tlicrcfore give
both. Here is the shorter : —

"For the divinest prophets lived according to Christ
Jesus. On this account also they -were persecuted, being
inspired by liis grace to fully convince the unbelieving
that there is one God, %Yho has manifested hiroself by
Jesus Christ his Son, wlio i? Lis eternal Word, not pro-
ceeding forth from silence, and who in all things pleased
him that sent him. if, therefore, thote who \yere brought
up in the ancient order of things have come to the posses-
sion of a nev/ hope, no longer observing the Sabbath, but
living in the observance of the Lord's day, on which also
our life has sprung again by him and by his death — whom
some denj^, by which mystery w'e have obtained faith, and
therefore endure, that we may be found the disciples of
Jesus Christ, our only )naster — how shall we be able to
live apart from him, whose disciples the prophets tliem-
selvcs in the Spirit did wait for him as their teacher?
And therefore he whom tliey rightly waited for, being
come, raised them from the dead." Chaps, viii. and ix.

This paragraph is the one out of whicli a ]-)art
of a sentence is quoted to show that Ignatius
testifies in behalf of the Lord's-day festival, or

EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS. 27

Christian Sabbath. But the so-called Lord's day-
is only brought in by means of a false transla-
tion. This is the decisive sentence : iirjKert caOCaTl-

CovTEc, ciA/.a Kara KvgiaKijV ^oi/tJ ^uvtcc ; literally : " nO

longer sabbatizin;^, but living according to the
Lord's life.".

Eriiiiient first Uxrs ha,ve called atten-

■0:1 to this fa';t, anct iiave testified explicitly that
iiie term Lurd's day has no right to appear in
the transla-tion ; for the original is not Kvniauijr
i/innav, Lord's day, but KvntaKtjv c^/yi-, Loixl's life.
This is absolutely decisive, and shows that some-
thing akin to fraud has to be used in order to
find a reference in this place to the so-called
Christian Sabbath.

But there is another fact quite as much to the
point. The writer was not speaking of those
then alive, but of the ancient prophets. This is
proved by the opening and closing words of tiio
above quotation, which first-day writers alwa,ys
omit. The so-called Lord's day is inserted b}^ a
fraudulent translation ; and now see what absurd-
ity comes of it. The writer is speaking of the
ancient prophets. If, therefore, the Sunday festi-
val be inserted in this quotation from Ignatius
he is made to declare that "the divinest proph-
ets," who " were brought up in the ancient order
of things," kept the first day and did not keep
the Sabbath I Whereas, the truth is just the re-
verse of this. They certainly did keep the Sab-
bath, and did not keep the first day of the week.
The writer speaks of the point when these men
came "to the newness of hope," which must be
their individual conversion to God. They certain-
ly did observe and enforce the Sabbath after tli is
act of conversion. See Isa., chaps. 50, .58 ; Jer. 17 ;

1^5 TESTnrONY 01" THE FATHERS.

Eze., cliaps. 20, 22, 23. But they did also, as tliia
writer truly affirms, live according to the Lord's
life. The sense of the writer respecting the proph-
ets must therefore be this : " No longer [after their
conversion to God] observing the Sabbath [mere-
ly, as natural men] but living according to the
Lord's life," or " according to Christ Jesus."

So much for the shorter form of the epistle to
the Magnesians. Though the longer form is by
almost universal consent of scholars and critics
pronounced the work of some centuries after the
time of Ignatius, yet as a portion of this also is
often given by first-day writers to support Sun-
day, and given too as the words of Ignatius, we
here present in full its reference to the first day
of the week, and also to the Sabbath, which they
generally omit. Here are its statements : —

" Let us therefore no longer Ivcep the Sabbath after the
Jewish manner, and rejoice in days of idleness ; for ' ho
that does not work, let him not eat.' For, say the [holy]
oracles, ' In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat thy
bread.' But let every one of you keep the Sabbath after
a spiritual manner, rejoicing in meditation on the. law,
not in relaxation of the body, admiring the workmanship
of God, and not eating things prepared the day before,
nor using lukewarm drinks, and walking within a pre-
scribed space, nor finding delight in dancing and plaudits
which have no sense in them. And after the observance
of the Sabbath, let every friend of Christ keep the Lord's
day as a festival, the resurrection day, the queen and
chief of all the days [of the week]. Looking forward to
this, the prophet declared, ' To the end, for the eighth
day,' on which our life both sprang up again, and the
victory over death was obtained in Christ," etc. Chap-
ter ix.

This epistle, though the work of a later hand
than that of lixnatius, is valuable for the liMit
which it slieds upon the state of things when it

EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS. 29

wa.s written. It give« us a correct idea of tlic
progress of apostasy with respect to the Sabbath
in the time of the writer. He speaks against
Jewish superstition in the observance of the Sab-
bath, and condemns days of idleness as contrary
to the declaration, " In the sweat of thy face shalt
thou cat thy bread." But by days of idleness
he cannot refer to the Sabbath, for this would be
to make the fourth commandment clash with this
text, whereas they must harmonize, inasmuch as
they existed together during the former dispen-
sation. Moreover, the Sabbath, though a day of
abstinence from labor, is not a day of idleness, but
of active participation in religious duties. He
enjoins its observance after a spiritual manner.
And after the Sabbath has been thus observed,
" let every friend of Christ keep the Lord's day
as a festival, the resurrection day, the queen and
chief of all the days." The divine institution of
the Sabbath was not yet done away, but the
human institution of Sunday had become its
equal, and was even commended above it. Not
long after this, it took the whole ground, and the
observance of the Sabbath was denounced as
heretical and pernicious.

TI)c reputed ci)istle of Ignatius to the Trallians
in its shorter form does not a]ludc to this suIj-
jcct. In its longer form, which is admitted to be
the work of a later age than that of Ignatius,
these expressions are found : —

" During the Sabbath, he coTithnied under the earth ; "
" at the dawning of the Lord's day he arose from the
dead ; " " the Sabbath embraces the burial ; the Lord's
day contains the resurrection." Chap. ix.

In the cpibtlc to the Philippians, whicli is uni-

o!» TESTIMONY OF THE FATIIEIIS.

versally acknowledged to be the work of a later
person than Ignatius, it is said : —

*' If any one fasts on the Lord's day or on the Sabbath,
except on the paschal Sabbath only, he is a murderer of
Christ." Chaj). xiii.

We have now given every allusion to the Sab-
bath and first-day that can be found in any writ-
ing attributed to Ignatius. We have seen that
tlie term " Lord's day " is not found in any sen-
tence written by him. The first day is never
called the Christian Sabbath, not even in the
writings falsely attributed to him ; nor is there in
any of them a hint of the modern doctrine of the
change of the Sabbath. Though falsely ascribed
to Ignatius, and actually v/ritten in a later age,
fhey are valuable in that they mark the progress
of apostasy in the establishment of the Sunday
festival. Moreover, they furnish conclusive evi-
dence that the ancient Sabbath was retained for
centuries in the so-called Catholic church, and
that the Sunday festival v/as an institution en-
tirely distinct from the Sabbath of the fourth
commandment.

TESTIMONY OF THE CHURCH AT SMYRNA.

The epistle of Polycarp makes no reference to
the Sabbath nor to the first day of the week.
But "the encyclical epistle of the church at
Smyrna concerning the martyrdom of the holy
Polycarp," informs us that " the blessed Polycarp
sulFered martyrdom " " on the great Sabbath at
tlie eighth hour." Chapter xxi. The margin
says: "The great Sabbath is that before the
passover." This day, thus mentioned, is not Sun-
day, but is the ancient Sabbath of tlie Lord.

DI0GNETU8 AND CLEMENT. 31

TESTIMONY OF THE EPISTLE TO DIOGNETUS.

This was v/ritten by an unknown author, and
Diognetus himself is known only by name, no
facts concerning him having come down to us.
It dates from the first part of the second century.
The writer speaks of " the superstition as respects
the Sabbaths " which the Jews manifested, and
he adds these words : " To speak falsely of God,
as if he f )rbade us to do what is good on the
Sabbath days — how is not this impious ? " But
there is nothing in this to which a command-
ment-keeper would object, or which he might
not freely utter.

The " Recognitions of Clement " is a kind of
philosophical and theological romance. It pur-
ports to have been written by Clement of Rome,
in the time of the apostle Peter, but was actually
written " somewhere in the first half of the third
century."

TESTIMONY OF THE PRECOGNITIONS OF CLEMENT.

In book i., chapter xxxv., he speaks of the giv-
ing of the law thus : —

"Meantime they came to Mount Sinai, and thence the
law was given to them with voices and sights from heaven,
written in ten f)recepts, of which the first and greatest
was that they should worship God himself alone," etc.
In book iii., chaj)ter Iv., he speaks of these precepts as
tests : " On account of those, therefore, who by neglect
of their own salvation please the evil one, and those who
by study of their own x)rofit seek to please the good One,
ten things have been j)rescribed as a test to this present
age, according to the number of the ten plagues which
were brought upon Egypt." In book ix., chajjter xxviii. ,
he says of the Ilebrovrs, " that no child born among them
is ever exposed, and that on every seventh day they all
rest," etc. In book x., chap. Ixxii., is given the conver-

32 TESTIMONY OF THE FATUEliy.

sion of one Faiistinianus by St, Peter. And it ia saitl,
" Ho proclaimed a fast to all the people, and on the next
Lord's day he baptized him."

This is all that I find in this work relating to
the Sabbath and the so-called Lord's day. The
writer held the ten commandments to be tests of
character in the present dispensation. There is
no reason to believe that he, or any other person
in that age, held the Sunday festival as some-
thing to be observed in obedience to the fourth
commandment.

TESTIMONY OF THE SYRIAC DOCUMENTS CON-
CERNING EDESSA.

On pages 35-55 of this work is given what
purports to be " The Teaching of the Apostles."
On page SG, the ascension of the Lord is said to
have been upon the " first day of the week, and
the end of the Pentecost." Two manifest false-
hoods are here uttered; for the ascension was
upon Thursday, and the Pentecost came ten days
after the ascension. It is also said that the dis-
ciples came from Nazareth of Galilee to the
mount of Olives on that selfsame day before the
ascension, and yet that the ascension was "at
tlic time of the early dawn." But Nazareth was
distant from the mount of Olives at least sixty
miles !

On page 38, a commandment from the apostles
is given: "On the first [day] of the week, let
there be service, and the reading of the holy
Scriptures, and the oblation," because Christ
arose on that day, was born on that day, ascended
on that day, and will come again on that day.
But here is one truth, one falsehood, and two mere
assci'tions. The apostle, arc rci>rcscnteJ, on page

TESTIMONY OF JUSTIN MARTYR. 33

39, as commanding a fast of forty days, and they
add : " Then celebrate the day of the passion [Fri-
day], and the day of the resurrection," Sunday.
But this would be only an annual celebration of
these days.

And on pages 88 and 39 they are also repre-
sented as commanding service to be held on the
fourth and sixth days of the week. The Sabbath
is not mentioned in these " Documents," which
were written about the commencement of the
fourth century, when, in many parts of the world,
that day had ceased to be hallowed.

CHAPTER IV.

TESTIMONY OF JUSTIN MARTYR.

Justin's " Apology " was written at Rome
about the year 140. His " Dialogue with Try-
pho the Jew " was written some years later. In
searching his works, we shall see how much
greater progress apostasy had made at Rome
than in the countries where those lived whose
writings we have been examining. And yet
nearly all these writings were composed at least
a century later than those of Justin, though we
have quoted them before quoting his, because ot
their asserted apostolic origin, or of their asserted
origin within a few years of the times of the
apostles.

It does not appear that Justin, and those at
Rome who held with him in doctrine, paid the
slightest regard to the ancient Sabbath. He
speaks of it as abolished, and treats it with con-
Testimony of the Fathers. 3

34 TESTIMONY OF THE FATHERS.

tempt. Unlike some whose writings have been
examined, he denies that it originated at creation,
and asserts that it was made in the days of Moses.
He also differs with some already quoted in that
he denies the perpetuity of the law of ten com-
mandments. In his estimation, the Sabbath was
a Jewish institution, absolutely unknown to good
men before the time of Moses, and of no author-
ity whatever since the death of Christ. The idea
of the change of the Sabbath from the seventh
day of the week to the first, is not only never
found in his writings, but is absolutely irrecon-
cilable with such statements as the foregoing,
which abound therein. And yet Justin Martyr
is prominently and constantly cited in behalf of
the so-called Christian Sabbath.

The Roman people observed a festival on the
first day of the week in honor of the sun. And
so Justin in his Apology, addressed to the em-
peror of Rome, tells that monarch that the Chris-
tians met on " the day of the sun," for worship.
He gives the day no sacred title, and does not
even intimate that it was a day of abstinence
from labor, only as they spent a portion of it in
worship. Here are the. words of his Apology on
the Sunday festival : —

" And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities
or in the country gather together to one place, and the
memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets
are real, as long as time permits ; then, when the reader
has cease. 1, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts
to the imitation of these good things. Then we all rise
together and pray, and, as we before said, when our
prayer is ended, "bread and wine and water are brought,
and the president in like manner offers prayers and
thanksgivings, according to his ability, and the people
assent, saying, Amen ; and there is a distribution to each,
and a participation of that over which thanks have been

TESTIMONY OF JUSTIN MARTYR, 35

given, and to those who are absent a portion is sent by
the deacons. And they who are well to do, and willing,
give what each thinks fit ; and what is collected is depos-
ited with the president, who succors the orphans and wid-
ows, and those who, through sickness or any other cause,
are in want, and those who are in bonds, and the stran-
gers sojourning among us, and, in a word, takes care of
all who are in need. But Sunday is the day on which
we all hold our common assembly, because it is the first
day on which God, having wrought a change in the dark-
ness and matter, made the world ; and Jesus Christ our
Saviour on the same day rose from the dead. For he
was crucified on the day before that of Saturn (Saturday) ;
and on the day after that of Saturn, which is the day of
the sun, having appeared to his apostles and disciples, he
taught them these things, which we have submitted to
you also for your consideration." Chap. Ixvii.

Not one word of this indicates that Justin con-
sidered the Sunday festival as a continuation of
the Sabbath of the fourth commandment. On
the contrary, he shows clearly that no such idea
was cherished by him. For though the fourth
commandment enjoins the observance of the sev-
enth day because God rested on that day from
the woi'k of creation, Justin urged in behalf of
the Sunday festival that it is the day on which
he began his work. The honor paid to that fes-
tival was not therefore in Justin's estimation in
any sense an act of obedience to the fourth com-
mandment. He mentions as his other reason for
the celebration by Christians of " the day of the
sun," that the Saviour arose that day. But he
claims no divine or apostolic precept for this cel-
ebration ; the things which he says Christ taught
his apostles being the doctrines which he had em-
bodied in this Apology for the information of the
emperor. And it is worthy of notice that though
first-day writers assert that '' Lord's day " was
the familiar title of the first day of the week in

36 TESTIMONY OF THE FATHERS.

the time of the Apocalypse, yet Justin, who is
the first person after the sacred writers that men-
tions the first day, and this at a distance of only
44 years from the date of John's vision upon
Patmos, does not call it by that title, but by the
name which it bore as a heathen festival ! If it
be said that the term was omitted because he was
addressing a heathen emperor, there still remains
the fact that he mentions the day quite a number
of times in his " Dialogae with Trypho," and yet
never calls it " Lord's day," nor indeed does he
call it by any name implying sacredness.

Now we present the statements concerning the
Sabbath and first-day found in his "Dialogue
with Trypho the Jew." The impropriety, not to
say dishonesty, of quoting Justin in behalf of the
modern doctrine of the change of the Sabbath,
will be obvious to all. He was a most decided
no-law, no- Sabbath writer, who used the day
commonly honored as a festival by the Romans,
as the most suitable, or most convenient, day for
public worship, a position identical with that of
modern no-Sabbath men. Justin may be called
a law man in this sense, however, that while he
abolishes the ten commandments, he calls the
gospel "the new law." He is therefore really
one who believes in the gospel and denies the
law. But let us hear his own words. Trypho,
having in chapter viii. advised Justin to observe
the Sabbath, and " do all things which have been
written in the law," in chapter x. says to him,
" You observe no festivals or Sabbaths."

This was exactly adapted to bring out from
Justin the answer that though he did not observe
the seventh day as the Sabbath, he did thus rest
on the first day, if it were true that that day was

TESTIMONY OF JUSTIN MARTYR. 37

with him a day of abstinence from labor. And
now observe Justin's answer given in chapter
twelve : —

" The new law requires you to keep perpetual Sabbath,
and you, because you are idle for one day, suppose you
are pious, not discerning why this has been commanded
you ; and if you eat unleavened bread, you say the will
of God has been fulfilled. The Lord our God does not
take pleasure in such observances : if there is any per-
jured person or a thief among you, let him cease to be so ;
if any adulterer, let him repent ; then he has kept the
sweet and true Sabbaths of God."

This language plainly implies that Justin held
all daj^s to be alike, and did not observe any one
day as a day of abstinence from labor. But in
chapter xviii., Justin asserts that the Sabbaths
— and he doubtless includes the weekly with
the annual — were enjoined- upon the Jews for
their wickedness : —

" For we too would observe the fleshly circumcision, and
the Sabbaths, and in short, all the feasts, if we did not
know for what reason they were enjoined you — namely, on
account of your transgressions and the hardness of your
hearts. For if we patiently endure all things contrived
against us by wicked men and demons, so that amid cru-
elties unutterable, death and torments, we pray for mercy
to those who inflict such things upon us, and do not wish
to give the least retort to any one, even as the new Law-
giver commanded us : how is it, Trypho, that we would
not observe those rites which do not harm us — I speak of
fleshly circumcision, and Sabbaths, and feasts 1 "

Not only does he declare that the Jews were
commanded to keep the Sabbath because of their
wickedness, but in chapter xix. he denies that
any Sabbath existed before Moses. Thus, after
naming Adam, Abel, Enoch, Lot, and Mel-
chizedek, he says : —

* ' Moreover, all those righteous men already mentioned,
though they kept no Sabbaths, were pleasing to God."

38 TESTIMONY OF THE FATHERS.

But though he thus denies the Sabbatic insti-
tution before the time of Moses, he presently
makes this statement concerning the Jews : —

* * And you were commanded to keep Sabbaths, that
you might retain the memorial of God. For his word
makes this announcement, saying, ' That ye may know
that I am God who redeemed you.' " [Eze. 20 : 12.]

The Sabbath is indeed the memorial of the God
that made the heavens and the earth. And what
an absurdity to deny that that memorial was set
up when the creative work was done, and to af-
j&rm that twenty-five hundred years intervened
between the work and the memorial !

In chapter xxi. Justin asserts " that God en-
joined you [the Jews] to keep the Sabbath,
and imposed on you other precepts for a
sign, as I have already said, on account of your
unrighteousness, and that of your fathers," &c.,
and quotes Ezekiel 20 to prove it. Yet that
chapter declares that it was in order that they
might know who was that being who sanctified
them, i. e., that they might know that their God
was the Creator, that the Sabbath was made to
them a sign.

In chapter xxiii., he again asserts that " in the
times of Enoch " no one " observed Sabbaths."
He then protests against Sabbatic observance as
follows : —

" Do you see that the elements are not idle, and keep
no Sabbaths 1 Remain as you were born. For if there
was no need of circumcision before Abraham, or of the
observance of Sabbaths, of feasts and sacrifices, before
Moses ; no more need is there of them now, after that,
according to the will of God, Jesus Christ the Son of God
has been born without sin, of a virgin sprung from the
stock of Abraham."

That is to say, there was no Sabbatic institu-

TESTIMONY OF JUSTIN MARTYR. 39

tion before Moses, and neither is there any since
Christ. But in chapter xxiv., Justin undertakes
to bring in an argument for Sunday, not as a
Sabbath, but as having greater mystery in it,
and as being more honorable than the seventh
day. Thus, alluding to circumcision on the
eighth day of a child's life as an argument for the
fii"st-day festival, he says : —

" It is possible for us to show how the eighth day pos-
sessed a certain mysterious import, which the seventh
day did not possess, and which was promulgated by God
through these rites."

That is to say, because God commanded the
Hebrews to circumcise their children when they
were eight days old, therefore all men should now
esteem the first day of the week more honorable
than the seventh day, which he commanded in
the moral law, and which Justin himself, in chap-
ter xix., terms " the memorial of God." In chap-
ter xxvi., Justin says to Trypho that —

''The GentUes, who have believed on him, and have
repented of the sins which they have committed, they
shall receive the inheritance along with the patriarchs and
the prophets, and the just men who are descended from
Jacob, even although they neither keep the Sabbath, nor
are circumcised, nor observe the feasts."

And in proof of this, he quotes from Isa. 42,
and 62, and 63, respecting the call of the Gentiles.
Upon this (chapter xxvii.), Trypho the Jew very
pertinently asks : —

" Why do you select and quote whatever you wish from
the prophetic writings, but do not refer to those which
expressly command the Sabbath to be observed] For
Isaiah thus speaks [chap. 58 : 13, 14], ' If thou shalt turn
away thy foot from the Sabbath,' " etc.

To which Justin makes this uncandid answer: —

40 TESTIMONY OF THE FATHERS.

"I have passed them by, my friends, not because such
prophecies were contrary to me, but because you have
understood, and do understand, that although God com-
mands you by all the prophets to do the same things
which he also commanded by Moses, it was on account of
the hardness of your hearts, and your ingratitude towards
him, that he continually proclaims them, in order that,
even in this way, if you repented, you might please him,
and neither sacrifice your children to demons, nor be par-
takers with thieves," etc. And he adds : " So that, as in
the beginning, these things were enjoined you because of
your wickedness, in like manner, because of your stead-
fastness in it, or rather your increased proneness to it, by
means of the same precepts, he calls you [by the proph-
ets] to a remembrance or knowledge of it."

These are bitter words from a Gentile who had
been a pagan philosopher, and they are in no
sense a just answer unless it can be shown that
the law was given to the Jews because they were
so wicked, and was withheld from the Gentiles be-
cause they were so righteous. The truth is just
the reverse of this. Eph. 2. But to say some-
thing against the Sabbath, Justin asks : —

^ ' Did God wish the i^riests to sin when they offer the
sacrifices on the Sabbaths ? or those to sin, who are cir-
cumcised and do circumcise on the Sabbaths ; since he
commands that on the eighth day — even though it hap-
pen to be a Sabbath — those who are born shall be always
circumcised ? " And he asks if the rite could not be one
day earlier or later, and why those " who lived before
Moses " " observed no Sabbaths ? "

What Justin says concerning circumcision and
sacrifices is absolutely without weight as an ob-
jection to the Sabbath, inasmuch a^ the command-
ment forbids, not the performance of religious
duties, but our own work. Ex. 20 : 8-11. And
his often repeated declaration that good men be-
fore the time of Moses did not keep the Sabbath,
is mere assertion, inasmuch as God appointed it

TESTIMONY OF JUSTIN MARTYR. 41

to a holy use in the time of Adam, and we do
know of some in the patriarchal age who kept
God's commandments, and were perfect before him.

In chapter xxix., Justin sneers at Sabbatic ob-
servance by saying, " Think it not strange that
we drink hot water on the Sabbaths." And as
arguments against the Sabbath he says that God
" directs the government of the universe on this
day equally as on all others," as though this were
inconsistent with the present sacredness of the
Sabbath, when it was also true that God thus
governed the world in the period when Justin
acknowledges the Sabbath to have been obliga-
tory. And he again refers to the sacrifices and
to those who lived in the patriarchal age.

In chapter xli., Justin again brings forward his
argument for Sunday from circumcision : —

^'The command of circumcision, again, bidding [them]
always circumcise the children on the eighth day, was a
type of the true circumcision, by which we are circum-
cised from deceit and iniquity through Him who rose
from the dead on the first day after the Sabbath [namely,
through], our Lord Jesus Christ. For the first day after
the Sabbath, remaining the first of all the days, is called,
however, the eighth, according to the number of all the
days of the cycle, and [yet] remains the first."

Sunday-keeping must be closely related to in-
fant baptism, inasmuch as one of the chief argu-
ments in modern times for the baptism of infants
is drawn from the fact that God commanded the
Hebrews to cii'cumcise their male children ; and
Justin found his scriptural authority for first-day
observance in the fact that this rite was to be
performed when the child was eight days old !
Yet this eighth day did not come on one day of
the week, only, but on every day, and when it
came on the seventh day it furnished Justin with

42 TESTIMONY OF THE FATHERS.

an argument against the sacredness of the Sab-
bath 1 But let it come on what day of the week
it might (and it came on all alike), it was an ar-
gument for Sunday ! 0 wonderful eighth day,
that can thrive on that which is positively fatal
to the seventh, and that can come every week on
the first day thereof, though there be only seven
days in each week !

In chapters xliii., and xlvi., and xcii., Justin re-
iterates the assertion that those who lived in the
patriarchal age did not hallow the Sabbath. But
as he adds no new thought to what has been al-
ready quoted from him, these need not be copied.

But in chapter xlvii., we have something of in-
terest. Trj^pho asks Justin whether those who
believe in Christ, and obey him, but who wish to
" observe these [institutions] wilt be saved ? "
Justin answers : "In my opinion, Trypho, such
an one will be saved, if he does not strive in ev-
ery way to persuade other men ... to observe
the same things as himself, telling them that they
will not be saved unless they do so." Trypho
replied, " Why then have you said, * In my opin-
ion, such an one will be saved,' unless there are
some who affirm that such will not be saved ? "

In reply, Justin tells Trypho that there were
those who would have no intercourse with, nor
even extend hospitality to, such Christians as ob-
observed the law. And for himself he says : —

" But if some, through weak-mindedness, wish to ob-
serve such institutions as were given by Moses (from
which they expect some virtue, but which we believe were
appointed by reason of the hardness of the people's
hearts), along with their hope in this Christ, and [wish to
perform] the eternal and natural acts of righteousness
and piety, yet choose to live with the Christians and the
faithful, as I said before, not inducing them either to be

TESTIMONY OF JUSTIN MARTYr/ 43

circumcised like themselves, or to keep the Sabbath, or
to observe any other such ceremonies, then I hold that
we ought to join ourselves to such, and associate with
them in all things as kinsmen and brethren."

Justin's language shows that there were Sab-
bath-keeping Christians in his time. Such of
them as were of Jewish descent no doubt gener-
ally retained circumcision. But it is very unjust
in him to represent the Gentile Sabbath-keepers
as observing this rite. That there were many of
these is evident from the so-called " Apostolical
Constitutions," and even from the Ignatian Epis-
tles. One good thing, however, Justin does say.
The keeping of the commandments he terms the
performance of " the eternal and natural acts of
righteousness." He would consent to fellowship
those who do these things provided they made
them no test for others. He well knew in such
case that the Sabbath would die out in a little
time. Himself and the more popular party at
Rome honored as their festival the day observed
by the heathen Romans, as he reminds the em-
peror in his Apology, and he was willing to fel-
lowship the Sabbath-keepers if they would not
test him by the commandments, i. e., if they
would fellowship him in violating them.

T^at Justin held to the abrogation of the ten
commandments is also manifest. Trypho, in the
tenth 'chapter of the Dialogue, having said to
Justin, " You do not obey his commandments,"
and again, " You do not observe the law," Justin
answers in chapter xi. as follows : —

" But we do not trust through Moses, or through the
law ; for then we would do the same as yourselves. But
now — for I have read that there shall be a final law, and
a covenant, the chiefest of all, which it is now incumbent
on all men to observe, as many as are seeking after the

J

44 TESTIMONY OF THE FATHERS.

inheritance of God. For the law promulgated on Horeb
is now old, and belongs to yourselves alone ; but this is
for all universally. Now, law placed against law has ab-
rogated that which is before it, and a covenant which
comes after in like manner has put an end to the pre-
vious one."

We must, therefore, proiiounce Justin a roan
who held to the abrogation of the ten coinmand-
ments, and that the Sabbath was a Jewish insti-
tution which was unknown before Moses* and of
no authority since Christ. He' held Sunday to
be the^most suitalDle day for public worship, but
not upon the ground that the Sabbath had been
changed to it, for he cuts up the Sabbatic institu-
tion by the roots ; and so far is he from calling
this day the Christian Sabbath that he gives to-
it the name which it bore as a heathen festival.

CHAPTER V.

Irenaeus — Dionysius — Melito — Bardesanes.
TESTIMONY OF TRENyEUS.

This father was born " somewhere between A.
D. 120 and A. D. 140." He was " bishop of Lyons
in France during the latter quarter of the second
century," being ordained to that office " probably
about A. D. 177." His work Against Heresies
was written "between A. D. 182 and A. D. 188."
First-day writers assert that Irenaeus " says that
the Lord's day was the Christian Sabbath." They
profess to quote from him these words : " On the
Lord's day every one of us Christians keeps the
Sabbath, meditating on the law and rejoicing in
the works of God."

TESTIMONY OF IRENiEUS. 45

No such language is found in any of the writ-
ings of this father. We will quote his entire
testimony respecting the Sabbath and first-day,
and the reader can judge. He speaks of Christ's
observance of the Sabbath, and shows that he
did not violate the day. Thus he says : —

"It is clear, therefore, that he loosed and vivified
those who believe in him as Abraham did, doing nothing
contrary to the law when he healed upon the Sabbath day.
For the law did not prohibit men from being healed upon
the Sabbaths ; [on the contrary] it even circumcised them
upon that day, and gave command that the offices should
be performed by the priests for the people ; yea, it did
not disallow the healing even of dumb animals. Both at
Siloam and on frequent subsequent occasions, did he per-
form cures upon the Sabbath ; and for this reason many
used to resort to him on the Sabbath days. For the law
commanded them to abstain from every servile work, that
is, from all grasping after wealth which is procured by
trading and by other worldly business ; but it exhorted
them to attend to the exercises of the soul, which consist
in reflection, and to addresses of a beneficial kind for
their neighbor's benefit. And therefore the Lord re-
proved those who unjustly blamed him for having healed
upon the Sabbath days. For he did not make void, but
fulfilled the law, by performing the offices of the high
priest, pr jpitiating God for men, and cleansing the lepers,
healing the sick, and himself suffering death, that exiled
man might go forth from condemnation, and might return
without fear to his own inheritance. And again, the law
did not forbid those who were hungry on the Sabbath
days to take food lying ready at hand : it did, however,
forbid them to reap and to gather into the barn, " — Against
Heresies, b. iv. chap. viii. sects. 2, 3.

The case of the priests on the Sabbath he
thus presents : —

"And the priests in the temple profaned the Sabbath,
and were blameless. Wherefore, then, were they blame-
less ? Because when in the temple they were not engaged
in secular affairs, but in the service of the Lord, fulfilling
the law, but not going beyond it, as that man did, who of

46 TESTIMONY OF THE FATHERS.

his own accord carried dry wood into the camp of God,
and was justly stoned to death." Book iv. chap. viii.
sect. 3.

Of the necessity of keeping the ten command-
ments, he speaks thus: —

''Now, that the law did beforehand teach mankind the
necessity of following Christ, he does himself make mani-
fest, when he replied as follows to him who asked him
what he should do that he might inherit eternal life : ' If
thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.' But
upon the other asking, ' which 1 ' again the Lord replied :
' Do not commit adultery, do not kill, do not steal, do
not bear false witness, honor father and mother, and
thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,' — setting as an
ascending series before those who wished to follow him,
the precepts of the law, as the entrance into life ; and
what he then said to one, he said to all. But when the
former said, ' All these have I done ' (and most likely he
had not kept them, for in that case the Lord would not
have said to him, ' Keep the commandments '), the Lord,
exposing his covetousness, said to him , ' If thou wilt be
j)erfect, go, sell all that thou hast, and distribute to the
poor ; and come follow me,' promising to those who
would act thus, the portion belonging to the apostles.
. . . But he taught that they should obey the com-
mandments which God enjoined from the beginning, and
do away with their former covetousness by good works,
and follow after Christ." Book iv. chap, xii, sect. 5.

Irenseus certainly teaches a very different
doctrine from that of Justin Martyr concerning
the commandments. He believed that men must
keep the commandments, in order to enter eter-
nal life. He says further : —

''And [we must] not only abstain from evil deeds, but
even from the desires after them. Now he did not teach
us these things as being opposed to the law, but as ful-
filling the law, and implanting in us the varied righteous-
ness of the law. That would have been contrary to the
law, if he had commanded his disciples to do anything
which the law had prohibited." Book iv. chap. xiii.
sect. 1.

TESTIMONY OF IREN^US. 47

He also makes the observance of the decalogue
the test of true piety. Thus he says : —

''They (the Jews) had therefore a law, a course of
dificipline, and a prophecy of future things. For God at
the first, indeed, warning them by means of natural
precepts, which from the beginning he had implanted in
mankind, that is, by means of the decalogue (which, if
any one does not observe, he has no salvation), did then
demand nothing more of them." Book iv. chap. xv.
sect. 1.

The precepts of the decalogue he rightly terms
" natural precepts," that is, precepts which con-
stitute " the work of the law " written by nature
in the hearts of all men, but marred by the pres-
ence of the carnal mind or law of sin in the
members. That this law of God pertains alike
to Jews and to Gentiles, he thus affirms : —

''Inasmuch, then, as all natural precepts are common
to us and to them (the Jews), they had in them, indeed,
the beginning and origin ; but in us they have received
growth and completion." Book iv. chap. xiii. sect. 4.

It is certain that Irenseus held the decalogue
to be now binding on all men ; for he says of it
in the quotation above, " Which if any one does
not observe, he has no salvation." But, though
not consistent with his statement respecting the
decalogue as the law of nature, he classes the
Sabbath with circumcision, when speaking of it
as a sign between God and Israel, and says, " The
Sabbaths taught that we should continue day by
day in God's service." " Moreover the Sabbath
of God, that is, the kingdom, was, as it were, in-
dicated by created things ; in which [kingdom],
the man who shall have persevered in serving
God shall, in a state of rest, partake of God's
table." He says also of Abraliam that he was
" without observance of Sabbaths." Book iv.

■18 TESTIMONY OF THE FATHERS.

chap. xvi. sects. 1, 2. But in the same chapter
he again asserts the perpetuity and authority of
the decalogue in these words : —

"Preparing man for this life, the Lord himself did
speak in his own person to all alike the words of the
decalogue ; and therefore, in like manner, do they remain
permanently with us, receiving, by means of his advent
in the flesh, extension and increase, but not abrogation."
Section 4.

This statement establishes the authority of
each of the ten commandments in the gospel
dispensation. Yet Irenseus seems to have re-
garded the fourth commandment as only a
typical precept, and not of perpetual obligation
like the others.

Irenseus regarded the Sabbath as something
which pointed forward to the kingdom of God.
Yet in stating this doctrine he actually indicates
the origin of the Sabbath at creation, though, as
we have seen, elsewhere asserting that it was
not kept by Abraham. Thus, in speaking of the
reward to be given the righteous, he says : —

" These are [to take place] in the times of the kingdom,
that is, upon the seventh day, which has been sanctified,
in which God rested from all the works which he created,
which is the true Sabbath of the righteous, in which they
shall not be engaged in any earthly occupation ; but shall
have a table at hand prepared for them by God, supply-
ing them with all sorts of dishes." Book v. chap, xxxiii.
sect. 2. And he elsewhere says : ''In as many days as
this world was made, in so many thousand years shall it
be concluded. . . . For the day of the Lord is as a
thousand years : and in six days created things were
completed : it is evident, therefore, that they will come
to an end at the sixth thousand year." Book v. chap,
xxviii. sect. 3.

Though Irenseus is made by first-day wi iters
to bear a very explicit testimony that Sunday is

TESTIMONY OF IREN^US. 49

the Christian Sabbath, the following, which con-
stitutes the seventh fragment of what is called
the " Lost Writings of Irenseus," is the only in-
stance which I have found in a careful search
through all his works in which he even mentions
the first day. Here is the entire first-day testi-
mony of this father : —

" This [custom], of not bending the knee upon Sunday,
is a symbol of the resurrection, through which we have
been set free, by the grace of Christ, from sins, and from
death, which has been put to death under him. Now
this custom took its rise from apostolic times, as the
blessed Ireneeus, the martyr and bishop of Lyons, declares
in his treatise On Easter, in which he makes mention of
Pentecost also ; upon which [feast] we do not bend the
knee, because it is of equal significance with the Lord's
day, for the reason already alleged concerning it."

This is something very remarkable. It is not
what Irenseus said, after all, but is what an un-
known writer, in a work entitled Quces. et Resp.
oxl Othod., says of him. And all that this writer
says of Irenseus is that he declares the custom of
not kneeling upon Sunday "took its rise from
apostolic times " I It does not even appear that
Irenseus even used the term Lord's day as a title
for the first day of the week. Its use in the
present quotation is by the unknown writer to
whom we are indebted for the statement here
given respecting Irenseus. And this writer, who-
ever he be, is of the opinion that the Pentecost
is of equal consequence with the so-called Lord's
day ! And well he may so judge, inasmuch as
both of these Catholic festivals are only estab-
lished by the authority of the church. The tes-
timony of Irenseus in behalf of Sunday does
therefore amount simply to this : That the res-

TestimoDy of the Fathers. -*

50 TESTIMONY OF THE FATHERS.

urrection is to be commemorated by " not bend-
ing the knee upon Sunday " 1

The fiftieth fragment of the " Lost Writings of
Irenseus " is derived from the Nitrian Collection
of Syriac MSS. It relates to the resurrection of
the dead. In a note appended to it the Syriac
editor says of Irenseus that he "wrote to an
Alexandrian to the effect that it is right, with
respect to the feast of the resurrection, that we
should celebrate it upon the first day of the
week." No extant writing of Irenseus contains
this statement, but it is likely that the Syriac
editor possessed some portion of his works now
lost. And here again it is worthy of notice that
we have from Irenseus only the plain name of
'' first day of the week." As to the manner of
celebrating it, the only thing which he sets forth
is " not bending the knee upon Sunday."

In the thirty-eighth fragment of his "Lost
Writings "he quotes Col. 2:16, but whether with
reference to the seventh day, or merely respect-
ing the ceremonial sabbaths, his comments do not
determine. We have now given every statement
of Irenseus which bears upon the Sabbath and
the Sunday. It is manifest that the advocates
of first-day sacredness have made Irenseus tes-
tify in its behalf to suit themselves. He alludes
to the first day of the week once or twice, but
never uses for it the title of Lord's day or Chris-
tian Sabbath, and the only thing which he men-
tions as entering into the celebration of the festi-
val was that Christians should not kneel in prayer
on that day 1 By first-day writers, Irenseus is
made to bear an explicit testimony that Sunday
is the Lord's day and the Christian Sabbath I
And to give great weight to this alleged fact, they

TESTIMONY OF IREN^EUS. 51

say that he was the disciple of Polycarp, who
was the disciple of John : and whereas John
speaks of the Lord's day, Irenseus, who must
have known what he meant by the term, says
that the Lord's day is the first day of the week !
But Polycarp, in his epistle, does not even men-
tion the first day of the week, and Irenseus, in
his extended writings, mentions it only twice,
and that in " lost fragments," preserved at second-
hand, and in neither instance does he call it any
thing but plain " first day of the week " ! And
the only honor which he mentions as due this
day is that the knee should not be bent upon it !
And even this was not spoken of every Sunday
in the year, but only of "Easter Sunday," the
anniversary of Christ's resurrection !

Here we might dismiss the case of Irenseus.
But our first-day friends are determined at least
to connect him with the use of Lord's day as
a name for Sunday. They therefore bring for-
ward Eusebius, who wrote 150 years later, to
prove that Iren?eus did call Sunday by that
name. Eusebius alludes to the controversy in
the time of Irenaeus, respecting the annual cele-
bration of Christ's resurrection in what was called
the festival of the passover. He says (Eccl. Hist.,
b. V. chap, xxiii.) that the bishops of different
countries, and Irenseus was of the number, de-
creed "that the mystery of our Lord's resurrection
should be celebrated on no other day than the
Lord's day ; and that on this day alone we should
observe the close of the paschal fasts," and not on
the fourteenth of the first month as practiced by
the other party. And in the next chapter, Euse-
bius represents Irenseus as writing a letter to
this eflfect to the Bishop of Rome. But observe,

52 TESTIMONY OF THE FATHERS.

Eusebius does not quote the words of any of these
bishops, but simply gives their decisions in his
own language. Th'ere is therefore no proof that
they used the term Lord's day instead of first
day of the week. But we have evidence that in
the decision of this case which Irena3us sent forth,
he used the term " first day of the week." For
the introduction to the fiftieth fragment of his
" Lost Writings," already quoted, gives an ancient
statement of his words in this decision, as plain
" first day of the week." It is Eusebius who gives
us the term Lord's day in recording what was
said by these bishops concerning the first day of
the week. In his time, A. D. 324, Lord's day had
become a common designation of Sunday. But
it was not such in the time of Irenseus, A. D. 178.
We have found no writer who flourished before
him who applies it to Sunday ; it is not so ap-
plied by Irenseus ; and we shall find no decisive
instance of such use till the close of the second
century.

TESTIMONY OF DIONYSIUS, BISHOP OF CORINTH.

This father, about A. D. 170, wrote a letter to
the Roman church, in which are found these
words : —

" We passed this holy Lord's day, in which we read
your letter, from the constant reading of which we shall
be able to draw admonition, even as from the reading of
the former one you sent us written through Clement."

This is the earliest use of the term Lord's day
to be found in the fathers. But it cannot be
called a decisive testimony that Sunday was thus
known at this date, inasmuch as every writer who
precedes Diony sius calls it " fii'st day of the week,"
" eighth day," or " Sunday," but never once by

MELITO AND BARDESANES. 53

this title ; and Dionysius says nothing to indicate
that Sunday was intended, or to sliow that he
did not refer to that day which alone has the
right to be called the Lord's "holy day." Isa.
58 : 13. We have found several express testimo-
nies to the sacredness of the Sabbath in the writ-
ers already examined.

TESTIMONY OF MELITO, BISHOP OF SARDIS.

This father wrote about A. D. 177. We know
little of this writer except the titles of his
books, which Eusebius has preserved to us. One
of these titles is this : " On the Lord's Day." But
it should be remembered that down to this date
no writer has called Sunday the Lord's day ; and
that every one who certainly spoke of that day
called it by some other name than Lord's day. To
say, therefore, as do first-day writers, that Melito
wrote of Sunday, is to speak without just war-
rant. He uses r?;^ KvgiaKTjc, " the Lord's," but does
not join with it iuega, a " day," as does John. He
wrote of something pertaining to the Lord, but it
is not certain that it was the Lord's day. More-
over, Clement, who next uses this term, uses it in
a mystical sense.

TESTIMONY OF THE HERETIC BARDESANES.

Bardesanes, the Syrian, flourished about A. D.
180. He belonged to the Gnostic sect of Valen-
tinians, and abandoning them, " devised errors of
his own." In his " Book of the Laws of Coun-
tries," he replies to the views of astrologers who
assert that the stars ^fovern men's actions. He
shows the folly of this by enumerating the pecul-
iarities of different races and sects. In doing this,
he speaks of the strictness with which the Jews

54 TESTIMONY OF THE FATHERS.

kept the Sabbath. Of the new sect called Chris-
tians, which "Christ at his advent planted in
every country," he says : —

" On one day, the first of the week, we assemble our-
selves together, and on the days of the readings we ab-
stain from [taking] sustenance."

This shows that the Gnostics used Sunday as
the day for religious assemblies. Whether he
recognized others besides Gnostics, as Christians,
we cannot say. We find no allusion, however, to
Sunday as a day of abstinence from labor, except
so far as necessary for their meetings. What
their days of fasting, which are here alluded to,
were, cannot now be determined. It is also
worthy of notice that this writer, who certainly
speaks of Sunday, and this as late as A. D. 180,
does not call it Lord's day, nor give it any sacred
title whatever, but speaks of it as " first day of
the week." No writer down to A. D. 180, who is
known to speak of Sunday, calls it the Lord's
day. ^_ ^

CHAPTER VI.

Theophilus — Clement of Alexandria.
TESTIMONY OF THEOPHILUS OF ANTIOCH.

This father became Bishop of Antioch in A. D.
168, and died A. D. 181. First-day writers rep-
resent him as saying, " Both custom and reason
challenge from us that we should honor the Lord's
day, seeing on that day it was that our Lord Je-
sus completed his resurrection from the dead."
These writers, however, give no reference to the

TESTIMONY OF THEOPHILUS. 55

particular place in the works of Theophilus where
this is to be found. I have carefully examined
every paragraph of all the extant writings of
this father, and that several times over, without
discovering any such statement. I am constrained,
therefore, to state that nothing of the kind above
quoted is to be found in Theophilus ! And fur-
ther than this, the term Lord's day does not oc-
cur in this writer, nor does he even refer to the
first day of the week e:^cept in quoting Genesis
1, in a single instance I But though he makes
no mention of the Sunday festival, he makes the
following reference to the Sabbath in his remarks
concerning the creation of the world : —

' ' Moreover [they spoke], concerning the seventh day,
which all men acknowledge ; but the most know not that
what among the Hebrews is called the ' Sabbath,' is trans-
lated into Greek the ' seventh ' (sj3dofj.ac), a name which is
adopted by every nation, although they know not the
reason of the appellation." — Theophilus to Autolycus, b.
ii. chap. xii.

Though Theophilus is in error in saying that
the Hebrew word Sabbath is translated into Greek
seventh, his statement indicates that he held the
origin of the Sabbath to be when God sanctified
the seventh day. These are the words of Script-
ure, as given by him, on which he wrote the
above : —

' ' And on the sixth day God finished his works which
he made, and rested on the seventh day from all his works
which he made. And God blessed the seventh day, and
sanctified it ; because in it he rested from all his works
which God began to create." Book ii. chap. xi.

In the fifteenth chapter of this book, he com-
pares those who " keep the law and command-
ments of God " to the fixed stars, while the " wan-
dering stars " are " a type of the men who have

56 TESTIMONY OF THE FATHERS.

wandered from God, abandoning his law and com-
mandments." Of the law itself, he speaks thus : —

'* We have learned a holy law; but we have as law-giver
him who is really God, who teaches us to act righteously,
and to be pious, and to do good." After quoting all but
the third and fourth commandments, he says : "Of this
great and wonderful law which tends to all righteousness,
the TEN HEADS are snch as we have already rehearsed,"
Book iii. chap. ix.

He makes the keeping of the law and com-
mandments the condition of a part in the resur-
rection to eternal life : —

"For God has given us a law and holy commandment&;
and every one who keeps these can be saved, and, obtain-
ing the resurrection, can inherit incorruption. " Book ii.
chap, xxvii.

And yet this man who bears such a noble testi-
mony to the commandments and the law, and
who says not one word concerning the festival of
Sunday, is made to speak explicitly in behalf of
this so-called Christian Sabbath !

TESTIMONY OF CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA,
A. D. 194.

This father was born about A. D. 160, and died
about A. D. 220. He wrote about A. D. 194, and
is the first of the fathers who uses the term
Lord's day in such a manner as possibly to sig-
nify by it the first day of the week. And yet he
expressly speaks of the Sabbath as a day of rest,
and of the first day of the week as a day for la-
bor ! The change of the Sabbath and the insti-
tution of the so-called Christian Sabbath were
alike unknown to him. Of the ten command-
ments, he speaks thus : —

" We have the decalogue given by Moses, which, indi-

TESTIMONY OF CLEMENT. 57'

eating by an elementary principle, simple and of one kind,
defines the designation of sins in a way conducive to sal-
vation," etc. — The Instructor, h. iii. chap. xii.

He thus alludes to the Sabbath : —

"Thus the Lord did not hinder from doing good while
keeping the Sabbath ; but allowed us to communicate of
those divine mysteries, and of that holy light, to those
who are able to receive them." — Tfie Miscellanies, b. i.
chap. i.

" To restrain one's self from doing good is the work of
vice ; but to keep from wrong is the beginning of salva-
tion. So the Sabbath, by abstinence from evils, seems to
indicate self-restraint." Book iv. chap. iii.

He calls love the Lord of the Sabbath : —

"He convicted the man, who boasted that he had ful-
filled the injunctions of the law, of not loving his neigh-
bor ; and it is by beneficence that the love which, accord-
ing to the Gnostic ascending scale, is Lord of the Sab-
bath, proclaims itself." Book iv. chap. vi.

Referring to the case of the priests in Eze. 43 ;

27, he says ; —

"And they purify themselves seven days, the period in
which creation was consummated. For on the seventh
day the rest is celebrated ; and on the eighth, he brings
a propitiation, as it is written in Ezekiel, according to
which propitiation the promise is to be received." Book
iv. chap. XXV.

We come now to the first instance in the fa-
thers in which the term Lord's day is perhaps ap-
plied to Sunday. Clement is the father who does
this, and he very properly substantiates it with
evidence. He does not say that Saint John thus
applied this name, but he finds authority for this
in the wiitings of the heathen philosopher Plato,
who, he thinks, spoke of it prophetically !

"And the Lord's day Plato prophetically speaks of in
the tenth book of the Bepuhlie, in these words : ' And
when seven days have passed to each of -them in the

58 TESTIMONY OF THE FATHERS.

meadow, on the eighth day they are to set ovit and arrive
in four days.' By the meadow is to be understood the
fixed sphere, as being a mild and genial spot, and the lo-
cality of the pious ; and by the seven days each motion of
the seven planets, and the whole practical art which
speeds to the end of the rest. But after the wandering
orbs the journey leads to Heaven, that is, to the eighth
motion and day. And he says that souls are gone on the
fourth day, pointing out the passage through the four el-
ements." Book V. chap. xiv.

By the eighth day to which Clement here ap-
plies the name of Lord's day the first day is pos-
sibly intended, though he appears to speak solely
of mystical days. But having said thus much in
behalf of the eighth day, he in the very next
sentence commences to establish from the Greek
writers the sacredness of that seventh day which
the Hebrews hallowed. This shows that what-
ever regard he might have for the eighth day, he
certainly cherished the seventh day as sacred.
Thus he continues : —

" But the seventh day is recognized as sacred, not by
the Hebrews only, but also by the Greeks ; according to
which the whole world of all animals and plants revolves.
Hesiod says of it : —

" * The first, and fourth, and seventh days were held
sacred. '

" And again : ' And on the seventh the sun's resplen-
dent orb.'

" And Homer : ' And on the seventh then came the
sacred day.'

" And : ' The seventh was sacred.'

" And again : ' It was the seventh day, and all things
were accomplished.'

''And again : 'And on the seventh morn we leave the
stream of Acheron.'

" Callimachus the poet also writes : ' It was the seventh
mom, and they had all things done. '

" And again : 'Among good days is the seventh day,
nnd the seventh race,'

TESTIMONY OF CLEMENT. 59

" And : ' The seventh is among the prime, and the sev-
enth is perfect.'
"And:

* Now all the seven were made in starry heaven,
In circles shining as the years appear.'

" The Elegies of Solon, too, intensely deify the seventh
day." Book v. chap. xiv.

Some of these quotations are not now found in
the writings which Clement cites. And whether
or not he rightly applies them to the seventh-
day Sabbath, the fact that he does so apply them
is incontestible proof that he honored that day as
sacred, whatever might also be his regard for that
day which he distinguishes as the eighth.

In book vi., chapter v., he alludes to the cele-
bration of some of the annual sabbaths. And in
chapter xvi., he thus speaks of the foui-th
commandment : —

"And the fourth word is that which intimates that the
world was created by God, and that he gave us the seventh
day as a rest, on account of the trouble that there is in
life. For God is incapable of weariness, and suffering,
and want. Btit ive who bear flesh need rest. TJie seventh
day, therefore, is proclaimed, a rest — abstraction from ills —
preparing for the primal day, our true rest ; which, in
truth, is the first creation of light, in which all things are
viewed and possessed. From this day the first wisdom
and knowledge illuminate us."

This certainly teaches that the Sabbath was
made for man, and that he now needs it as a day
of rest. It also indicates that Clement recognized
the authority of the fourth commandment, for he
treats of the ten commandments in order, and
comments on what each enjoins or forbids. In
the next paragraph, however, he makes some re-
markable suggestions. Thus he says : —

" Having reached this point, we must mention these

60 TESTIMONY OF THE FATHERS.

things by the way ; since the discourse has turned on the
seventh and the eighth. For the eighth may possibly turn
out to be properly the seventh, and the seventh, mani-
festly the sixth, and the latter,^ properly the Sabbath,
and the seventh, a day of work. For the creation of the
world was concluded in six days." Book vi. chap. xvi.

Clement thinks it possible that the eighth day
(Sunday), may really be the seventh day, and
that the seventh day (Saturday) may in fact
be the true sixth day. But let not our Sunday
friends exult at this, for Clement by no means
helps their case. Having said that Sunday may
be properly the seventh day, and Saturday mani-
festly the sixth day, he calls " the latter prop-
erly the Sabbath, and the seventh a day of
work " ! By " the latter," of necessity must be
understood the day last mentioned, which he says
should be called not the seventh, but the sixth ;
and by " the seventh," must certainly be intended
that day which he says is not the eighth, but the
seventh, that is to say, Sunday. It follows there-
fore in the estimation of Clement that Sunday was
a day of ordinary labor, and Saturday, the day of
rest. He had an excellent opportunity to say that
the eighth day or Sunday was not only the sev-
enth day, but also the true Sabbath, but instead of
doing this he gives this honor to the day which
he says is not the seventh but the sixth, and de-
clares that the real seventh day or Sunday is " a
day of work." And he proceeds at length to

*We notice that one first-day writer is so determined that
Clement shall testify in behalf of Sunday, that he deliberately
changes his words. Instead of giving his words as they are,
thus: "the latter, properly the Sabbath," in which case, as the con-
nection shows, Saturday is the day intended, he gives them thus :
"The eighth, properly the Sabbath," thereby making him call
Sunday the Sabbath. This is a remarkable fraud, but it shows
that the words as written by Clement could not be made to uphold
Sunday. See "The Lord's Day," by Rev. G. H. Jenks, p. 50.

TESTIMONY OF CLEMENT. 61

show the sacredness and importance of the num-
ber six. His opinion of the numbering of the
days is unimportant ; but the fact that this father
who is the first writer that connects the term
Lord's day with the eighth day or Sunday, does
expressly represent that day as one of ordinary
labor, and does also give to the previous day the
honors of the Sabbath is something that should
shut the mouths of those who claim him as a be-
liever in the so-called Christian Sabbath.

In the same chapter, this writer alludes to the
Sabbath vaguely, apparently understanding it to
prefigure the rest that remains to the people of
God:—

''Rightly, th«n, they reckon the number seven moth-
erless and childless, interpreting the Sabbath, and figu-
ratively expressing the nature of the rest, in which ' they
neither marry nor are given in marriage any more.' "

The following quotation completes the testi-
mony of Clement. He speaks of the precept
concerning fasting, that it is fulfilled by absti-
nence from sinful pleasure. And thus he says : —

" He fasts, then, according to the law, abstaining from
bad deeds, and, according to the perfection of the gospel,
from evil thoughts. Temptations are applied to him, not
for his purification, but, as we have said, for the good of
his neighbors, if, making trial of toils and pains, he has
despised and passed them by. The same holds of pleas-
ure. For it is the highest achievement for one who has
had trial of it, afterwards to abstain. For what great
thing is it, if a man restrains himself in what he knows
not 'i He, in fulfillment of the precept, according to the
gospel, keeps the Lord's day, when he abandons an evil
disposition, and assumes that of the Gnostic, glorifying
the Lord's resurrection in himself." Book vii. chap. xii.

Clement asserts that one fasts according to the
law when he abstains from evil deeds, and, ac-
cording to the gospel, when he abstains from evil

62 TESTIMONY OF THE FATHERS.

thoughts. He shows how the precept respecting
fasting is fulfilled when he speaks of one who
" in fulfillment of the precept, according to the
gospel, keeps the Lord's day when he abandons
an evil disposition." This abandonment of an
evil disposition, according to Clement, keeps the
Lord's day, and glorifies the Lord's resurrection.
But this duty pertains to no one day of the week,
but to all alike, so that he seems evidently to
inculcate a perpetual Lord's day, even as Justin
Martyr enjoins the observance of a "perpetual
Sabbath," to be acceptably sanctified by those
who maintain true repentance. Though these
writers are not always consistent with them-
selves, yet two facts go to show that Clement in
this book means just what his words literally
import, viz., that the keeping of the Lord's day
and the glorifying of the resurrection is not the
observance of a certain day of the week, but the
performance of a work which embraces every
day of one's whole life.

1. The first of these facts is his express state-
ment of this doctrine in the first paragraph of
the seventh chapter of this book. Thus he
says : —

"Now, we are commanded to reverence and to honor
the same one, being persuaded that he is Word, Saviour,
and Leader, and by him, the Father, not on special
DA'ts, AS SOME OTHERS, but dohig this continually in our
whole life, and in every way. Certainly the elect race,
justified by the precept, says, * Seven times a day have I
praised thee.' Whence not in a specified place, or se-
lected temple, or at certain festivals, and on appointed
days, but during his ivhole life, the Gnostic in every place,
even if he be alone by himself, and wherever he has any
of those who have exercised the like faith, honors God ;
that is, acknowledges his gratitude for the knowledge of
the way to live." Book vii. chap. vii.

TESTIMONY OF TERTULLTAN. 63

2. The second of these facts is that in book vi.,
chapter xvi., as ah-eady quoted, he expressly
represents Sunday as " a day of work."

Certainly Clement of Alexandria should not be
cited as teaching the change of the Sabbath, or
advocating the so-called Christian Sabbath.

CHAPTER VII.

TESTIMONY OF TEETULLIAN, A. D. 2t)0.

This writer contradicts himself in the most
extraordinary manner concerning the Sabbath
and the law of God. He asserts that the Sabbath
was abolished by Christ, and elsewhere emphat-
ically declares that he did not abolish it. He
says that Joshua violated the Sabbath, and then
expressly declares that he did not violate it. He
says that Christ broke the Sabbath, and then
shows that he never did this. He represents the
eighth day as more honorable than the seventh,
and elsewhere states just the reverse. He asserts
that the law is abolished, and in other places
affirms its perpetual obligation. He speaks of
the Lord's day as the eighth day, and is the
second of the early writers who makes an appli-
cation of this term to Sunday, if we allow Clem-
ent to have really 'spoken of it. But though
he thus uses the term like Clement he also like
him teaches a perpetual Lord's day, or, like
Justin Martyr, a perpetual Sabbath in the ob-
servance of every day. And with the observance
of Sunday as the Lord's day he brings in " offer-
ings for the dead " and the perpetual use of the
sign of the cross. But he expressly affirms that

G4 TESTIMONY OF THE FATHERS.

these things rest, not upon the authority of the
Scriptures, but wholly upon that of tradition and
custom. And though he speaks of the Sabbath
as abrogated by Christ, he expressly contradicts
this by asserting that Christ " did not at all re-
scind the Sabbath," and that he imparted an
additional sanctity to that day which from the
beginning had been consecrated by the benedic-
tion of the Father. This strange mingling of light
and darkness plainly indicates the age in which
this author lived. He was not so far removed
from the time of the apostles but that many clear
rays of divine truth shone upon him; and he
was far enough advanced in the age of apostasy
to have its dense darkness materially afiect him.
He stood on the line between expiring day and
advancing night. Sometimes the law of God
was unspeakably sacred ; at other times tradition
was of higher authority than the law. Some-
times divine institutions were alone precious in
his estimation ; at others he was better satisfied
with those whicli were sustained only by custom
and tradition.

Tertullian's first reference to Sunday is found
in that part of his Apology in which he excuses
his brethren from the charge of sun-worship.
Thus he says : —

" Others, again, certainly with more information and
greater verisimilitude, believe that the sun is onr God.
We shall be counted Persians, perhaps, though we do
not worship the orb of day painted on a piece of linen
cloth, having himself everywhere in his own disk. The
idea, no doubt, has originated from our being known to
turn to the east in prayer. But you, many of you, also,
under pretense sometimes of worshiping the heavenly
bodies, move your lips in the direction of the sunrise. In

TESTI.MuNV uK TEllTULLIAN. 60

far diiioreiit reason than sun-worship, we liavc some re-
semblance to tliose of you who devote the day of Saturn
to ease and luxury, tliou,i,di they, too, go far away from
Jewish ways, of which indeed they are ignorant." — -Thel-
v:elVs TranslatiGn, sect. IG.

Several important facts are presented in this
quotation.

1. Sunday was an ancient heathen festival in
honor of the sun.

2. Those Christians wlio observed the festival
of Sunday were claimed by the heathen as sun-
worshipers.

3. The entrance of the Sunday festival into
the church in an age of apostasy when men very
generally honored it, was not merely not difli-
cult to be effected, it was actually difficult to be
prevented.

It would seem from the closing sentence that
some of the heathen used the seventh day as a
day of ease and luxur}^ But Mr. Reeve's Trans-
lation gives a very different sense. He renders
Tertullian thus : —

*' We solemnize the day after Saturday in contradis-
tinction to those who call this day their Sabbath, and de-
vote it to ease and eating, deviating from the old Jewish
customs, which they are now very ignorant of. "

The persons here mentioned so contemptuously
could not be heathens, for they do not call any
day " their Sabbath." Nor could they be Jews,
as is plain from the form of expression used.
If we accept Mr. Reeve's Translation, these per-
sons were Christians who observe the seventh
day. TertuUian does not say that the Sunday
festival was observed by divine authority, but
that they might distinguish tliemselves from
those who call the seventh day the Sabbath.

'iVitiuiony uftho F:ithors. ?;>

■\

GG TESTIMONY OF THE FATHERS.

Tcrtullian again declares that his brethren did
not observe the days held sacred by the Jews.

" We neither accord with the Jews in their peculiari-
ties in regard to food, nor in their sacred days." — Apolo-
fjU, sect. 21.

But those Christians who would not keep the
Sabbath because the festival of Sunday was in
their estimation more worthy of honor, or more
convenient to observe, were greatly given to the
observance of other days, in common with the
heatlien, besides Sunday. Thus Tertullian cliai'g-
cs home upon them this sin : —

''The Holy Spirit upbraids the Jews with their holy
days. ' Your sabbaths, and new moons, and ceremo-
nies,' says he, ' my soul hateth.' By us (to whom vSab-
baths are strange, and the new moons, and festiA'als
formerly beloved by God) the Saturnalia and New Year's
and mid-winter's festivals and Matronalia are frequented
— presents come and go — New Year's gifts — games join
their noise — banquets join their din ! Oh ! better iidel-
ity of the nations to their own sect, which claims no so-
lemnity of the Christians for it-jelf ! Not the Lord's dojf,
not Pentecost, even if they had known them, would they
have shared with us ; for they would fear lest they should
seem to be Christians. We are not apprehensive lest we
seem to be heathens ! If any indulgence is to be granted
to the flesh, you have it. I will not say your own days,
but more too ; for to the heathens each festive day occurs
but once annually ; you have a festive day every eighth
day." — On Idolatry, chap. xiv.

These Sunday-festival Christians, "to wliom
Sabbaths " were " strange," could not have kept
Sunday as a Sabbath. They had never heard
that by divine autliority the Sabbath was changed
iVom the seventh to the first day of the week, and
that Sunday is the Cliristian Sabbath. Let any
candid man read the above words from Tertullian,
and then deny, if he can, that these strangers t-o

TESTIMONV OF TEUTULLIAN. G7

the Sabbath, and observers of heathen festivals,
were not a body of apostatizing Christians !

Hereafter Tertullian will give an excellent com-
mentary on his (quotation from Isaiah. It seems
from him that the so-called Lord's day came once
in eight days. Were these words to be taken in
their most obvious sense, then it would come one
day later each week than it did the preceding
week, and thus it would come successively on all
the days of the week in order, at intervals of
eight days. He might in such case well say : —

'' However, every day is the Lord's ; every hour, every
time, is apt for baptism ; if there is a difference in the
sdhnin'dy, in the grace, distinction there is none." — On
Baptism, chap, xix.

But it seems that Tertullian by the eighth day
intended Sunday. And here is something from
him relative to the manner of keeping it. Thus
he says : —

" In the matter of JcnceUng also, prayer is subject to di-
versity of observance, through the act of some few who
abstain from kneeling on the Sabbath ; and since this
dissension is particularly on its trial before the churches,'
the Lord will give his grace that the dissentients may
either yield, or else indulge their opinion without ofiense
to others. We, however (just as we have received), only
on the day of the Lord's resurrection ought to guard not
only against kneeling, but every posture and ofHce of
solicitude ; deferring even our businesses, lest we give
any place to the devil. Similarly, too, in the period of
Pentecost ; which period we distinguish by the same
solemnity of exultation. Jjut who would hesitate every
day to prostrate himself before God, at least in the iirst
prayer with which we enter on the daylight," — (hi Vray-
cr, chap, xxiii.

A more literal translation of this passage would
expressly connect the term Lord's day with the
day of Christ's resurrection, the original being

bb TESTIMOiNY OK TIIK FATHERS.

" die Dominico resurrexionis." The special week-
ly honor wliich Tertullian would have men con-
fer solely upon Sunday was to pray on that day
in a standing posture. And somewhat to his
anno3^ance, " some few " would thus act with ref-
erence to the Sabbath. There is, however, some
reference to the deferral of business on Sunday.
And this is worthy of notice, for It is the first
sentence we have discovered that looks like ab-
stinence from labor on Sunday, and we shall not
find another before the time of Constantine's fa-
mous Sunday law, A. D. 321.

But this passage is far from asserting that la-
bor on Sunday was sinful. It speaks of " defer-
ring even our businesses ; " but this docs not nec-
essarily imply anything beyond its postponement
during the hours devoted to religious services.
And we shall find nothing in Tertullian, nor in
his CO temporaries, that will go beyond this, while
we shall find much to restrict us to the interpre-
tation of his words here given. Tertullian could
not say that Sabbaths were strange to him and
liis brethren if they religiously refrained from la-
bor on each Sunday. But let us hear him again
concerning the observance of Sunday and kindred
practices : —

" Wo take also, in meetings before daybreak, and from
the hand of none but the presitlents, the sacrament of the
Eucharist, which the Lord l)oth commanded to bo eaten
at meal-times, and enjoined to be taken by all [alike].
As often as the anniversary comes round, we make offer-
ings for the dead as birth-day honors. We count fasting
or kneeling in worship on the Lord's day to bo unlawful.
We rejoice in the same privilege also from Easter to Whit-
sunday. We feel pained should any wine or bread, even
though our own, be cast upon the ground. At every for-
ward step and movement, at every going in and out, when
we put on our clothes and shoes, when wo Ixathe, when

TESTIMONY OF TEKTULLIAN. GO

we sit at table, when we light the lamps, on couch, on
seat, in all the ordinary actions of daily life, we trace upon
the forehead the sign [of the cross].

''If, for these and other such rvJes, you insist upon
having positive Scripture injunction, you will iind none.
Tradition will be held forth to you as the originator of
them, custom, as their strengthener, and faith, as their ob-
server. That reason will support tradition, and custom,
and faith, you will either yourself perceive, or learn from
some one who has." — Be Corona^ sects. 3 and 4.

The things whicli lie counted unlawful on
Sunday be expressly names. These are fasting
and kneeling on that day. But ordinary labor
does not come into his list of things unlawful on
that day. And now observe what progress apos-
tasy and superstition had made in other things
also. " Offerings for the dead " were regularly
made, and the sign of the cross was repeated as oft-
en as God would have men rehearse his command-
ments. See Deut. G : 6-9. And now if you wish
to know Tertullian's authority for the Sunday fes-
tival, offerings for the dead, and the sign of the
cross, he frankly tells you what it is. He had no
authority from the Scriptures. Custom and tradi-
tion were all that he could offer. Modern divines
can find plent}^ of authority, from the Scriptures,
as they assert, for maintaining the so-called Lord's
day. TertuUian knew of none. He took the
Sunday festival, offerings for the dead, and the
sign of the cross, on the authority of custom and
tradition; if you take the first on such authorit}^
v/hy do you not, also, the other two ?

But Tertullian finds it necessary to write a
second defense of his brethren from the charge of
being sun-w^orshipers, a charge directly connected
with tlifir ob.^ervancc of the fe.^tival of Sunday.
Here are his words : —

71) TESTIMONY OF THE FATHERS.

"Others, with greater regard to good manners, it must
be confessed, suppose that the sun is the god of the Chris-
tians, because it is a well-known fact that we pray towards
the east, or because we make Sunday a day of festivity.
What then '^ Do you do less than this ? Do not many
among you, with an affectation of sometimes worshiping
the heavenly bodies likewise, move your lips in the direc-
tion of the sunrise 'i It is you, at all events, who have even
admitted the sun into the calendar of the week ; and you
have selected its day [Sunday], in preference to the pre-
ceding day, as the most suitable in the week for either an
entire abstinence from the bath, or for its postponement
mitil the evening, or for taking rest, and for banqueting.
By resorting to these customs, you deliberately deviate
from your own religious rites to those of strangers. For
the Jewish feasts are the Sabbath and ' the Purification,'
and Jewish also are the ceremonies of the lamps, and the
fasts of unleavened bread, and the 'littoral prayers,' all
which institutions and practices are of course foreign from
your gods. Wherefore, that I may return from this di-
gression, you who rei^roach us with the sun and Sunday
should consider your i)roxiniity to us. We are not far
off from your Saturn and your days of rest." — Ad Na-
tlones, b. i. chap. xiii.

Tertullian in this discourse addresses himself to
the nations still in idolatry. The heathen festi-
val of Sunday, which was with some nations more
ancient, had been established among the Romans
at a comparatively recent date, though earlier
than the time of Justin Martyr, the first Chris-
tian writer in whom an authentic mention of the
day is found. The heathen reproached the early
Sunday Christians with being sun-worshipers,
" because," says Tertullian, " we pray towards the
east, or because we make Sunday a day of festiv-
ity." And how does Tertullian answer this grave
charge ? He could not say. We do it by command
of God to honor the first day of the week, for he
expressly states in a former quotation that no
such precept exists. So he retorts thus : " What

lIvSTLUONi OF TEUTULLIAX. 71

then? ])o you [heathen] do less ilian this?"
And he adds : " You have selected its day [Sun-
day] in preference to the preceding day " (Satur-
day), etc. That is to say, Tertullian wishes to
know why, if the heathen could choose Sunday
in preference to Saturday, the Christians could
not have the same privilege ! Could there be a
stronger incidental evidence that Sunday was
cherished by the early apostatizing Christians, not
because commanded of God, but because it was
generally observed by their heathen neighljors,
and therefore more convenient to them ?

But Tertullian next avows his faith in the ten
commandments as "the rules of oui* regenerate
life," that is to sa}^, the rules which govern Chris-
tian men ; and he gives the lucfcrence to the sev-
enth day over the eighth : —

'^I must also say something about tlie period of the
soul's birth, that I may omit nothing incidental in the
whole process. A mature and regular birth takes place,
as a general rule, at the commencement of the tcntli
month. They who theorize respecting numbers, honor
the number ten as the parent of all the others, and as im-
parting perfection to the human nativity. For my own
I^art, I prefer viewing this measure of time in reference to
God, as if implying that the ten months rather initiated
man into the ten commandments ; so that the numerical
estimate of the time needed to consummate our natural
birth should correspond to the numerical classification of
the rules of our regenerate life. But inasmuch as birth is
also completed with the seventh month, I more readily
recognize in this number than in the eighth the honor of
a numerical agreement with the Sabbatical period ; so
that the month in which God's image is sometimes pro-
duced in a human birth, shall in its number tally with the
day on which God's creation was completed and hallowed."
— De Anima, chap, xxxvii.

This kind of reasoning is of course destitute of
any force. But in adducing such an argument

72 TESTOIONY OF THE FATIIEKS.

Tertullian avows his faith in the ten command-
ments as the rule of the Christian s life, gives the
preference to the seventh day as the Sabbath,
and deduces the origin of the Sabbath from God's
act of hallowing the seventh day at creation.

Though Tertullian elsewhere, as wo shall see,
speaks lightly of the law of God, and represents
it as abolished, his next testimony most sacredly
honors that law, and while acknowledging the
Sabbath as one of its precepts, he recognizes the
authority of the whole code. Thus he says : —

" Of how deep guilt, then, adultery — which is likev/ise
a matter of fornication, in accordance with its criminal
function — ia to be accounted, the law of God first comes to
]iand to show us ; if it is true [as it is], that after interdict-
ing the superstitious service of alien gods, and the making
of idols themselves, after commending [to religious ol)-
servance] the veneration of the Sabbath, after command-
ing a religious regard toward parents, second [only to that]
toward God, [that law] laid, as the next substratum in
strengthening and fortifying such counts, no other pre-
cept than ^ Thou shalt not commit adultery.' " — On Mod-
tdy, chap. v.

And of this precept Tertullian presently tells
us that it stands " in the very forefront of the
onost holy latu, among the primary counts of ike
celestial edict." ,

In his treatise " On Fasting," chapter xiv., he
terms "the Sabbath — a day never to be kept
as a fast except at the passovcr season, according
to a reason elsewhere given." And in chapter
XV., he excepts from the two weeks in which
meat w^as not eaten " the Sabbaths " and " the
Lord's daj^s."

But in his " Answer to the Jews," chapter ii.,
lie represents the law as variously modilied from
Adam to C'linst ; he denies " that the Sabbath in

TKiSTIMONY OF TEUTULLIAX. i'o

still to be observed ;" classes it with circumcis-
ion ; declares that Adam was " inobservant of the
Sabbath;" affirms the same of Abel, Noah, Enoch,
and Melchizedek, and asserts that Lot " was freed
from the conflagration of the Sodomites" "for
the merits of righteousness, without observance
of the law." And in the beginning of chapter
iii., he again classes the Sabbath with circum-
cision, and asserts that Abraham did not "ob-
serve the Sabbath."

In chapter iv., he declares that "the observ-
ance of the Sabbath" was "temporary." And
he continues thus : —

"For the Jews say, that from the beginning God sanc-
tified the seventh day, l)y resting on it from all his works
which he made ; and that thence it was, likewise, that
Moses said to the people : ' Remember the day of the
Sabbaths/'*' etc.

Now see how TertuUian and his brethren dis-
posed of this commandment respecting the sev-
enth day : —

"Whence we [Christians] understand that ire still more
ought to observe a Sabbath from aU 'servile work' always,
and not only every seventh day, but through all time." •

That is to say in plain language, they would,
under pretense of keeping every day as a Sab-
bath, not only work on the seventh day of the
v/eek, but on all the days of the week. But this
plainly proves that Tertuilian did not think the
seventh day was superseded by the first. And
thus he proceeds :—

"And through this arises the fjuestion for us, wliat
Sabbath God willed us to keep."

(Jur iii-st-day friends quote Tertuilian in be-
hidf of what they call the Christian Sabbath.

74 TESTIMONY OF THE FATHERS.

Had he believed in such an institution he would
certainly have named it in answer to this ques-
tion. But mark his answer : —

"For the Scriptures point to a Sabbath eternal and a
Sabbath temporal. For Isaiah the prophet says, ' Your
Sabbaths my soul liatcth.' And in another place he says,
'My Sabbaths ye have profaned.' Whence we discern
that the temporal Sabbath is human, and the eternal Sab-
bath is accounted divine."

This temporal Sabbath is the seventh day ;
this eternal Sabbath is the keeping of all days
alike, as Tertiillian affirms that ho and tliose with
him did.

He next declares that Isaiah's prediction re-
specting the Sabbath in the new earth (Isa. GG :
22, 23), was "fuliilled in the times of Christ,
when all llcsh — tliat is, every nation — came to
adore in Jerusalem God tlie Father." And he
adds : "Tiius, therefore, before this tempoi-al Sab-
bath [tlie seventh day], there was withal an
eternal Sabbath foreshown and foretold," i. e., the
keejjing of all days alike. And this he fortifies
by the assertion that the holy men before Moses
did not observe the seventh day. And in proof
that the Sabbath was one day to cease, he cites
the compassing of Jericho for seven days, one of
which must have been the Sabbath. And to this
he adds the case of the Maccabees who fought
certain battles on the Sabbath. In due time we
shall see how admirably he answers such objec-
tions as these of his own raising.

In chapter vi., he repeats his theory of the
" Sabbath temporal " [the seventh day], and the
" Sabbath eternal " or the " Spiritual Sabbath,"
which is " to observe a Sabbath from all * servile
works ' always, and not only every seventh da}'^,

TE.STI.MONV OF I'ERTULLIAX. < .J

but through all time." He says that the ancient
law has ceased, and that " the new law" and the
" Spiritual Sabbath " have come.

In the twentieth chapter of his first book
against Marcion, Tertullian cites Hosea 2:11,
and Isa. 1:13, 14, to prove that the Sabbatli is
now abrogated. And in his fifth book against
Marcion, chapter iv., he quotes Gal. 4:10; John
19:31; Isa. 1:13,14; Amos 5:21, and Hosea
2:11, to prove that "the Creator abolished his
own laws," and that he " destroyed the institu-
tions which he set up himself." These quota-
tions are apparently designed to prove that the
Sabbath is abolished, but he does not enter into
argument from them. But in the nineteenth
chapter of this book he quotes Col. 2:1G, 17,
and simply says of the law : " The apostle here
teaches clearly how it has been abolished, even
by passing from shadow to substance — that is,
from ligurative types to the reality, which is
Christ." This remark is truthful and would
justly exclude the moral law from this abolition.

But in chapter xxi. of his second book against
Marcion, he answers the very objection against
the Sabbath which himself has elsewhere urged,
as we have noticed, drawn from the case of Jeri-
cho. He says to Marcion : —

"You do not, however, consider the law of the Sab-
bath : they are human works, not divine, which it pro-
hibits. For it says, ' Six days shalt thou labor, and do
all thy work ; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the
Lord thy God : in it thou shalt not do any work.' What
work ? Of course your own. The conclusion is, that
from the Sabbath day he removes those works which he
had before enjoined for the six days, that is, your own
works ; in other words, human works of daily life. Now,
the carrying around of the ark is evidently not an ordi-

76 TESTIMONY OF THE FATUERS.

nary daily duty, nor yet a human one ; but a rare and a
sacred work, and, as being then ordered by the direct
precept of God, a divine one. . . . Thus, in the present
instance, there is a clear distinction respecting the Sab-
bath's prohibition of human labors, not divine ones. Ac-
cordingly, the man who went and gathered sticks on the
SaJ^bath day was punished with death. For it was his
own work which he did ; and this the law forbade.
They, however, who on the Sabbath carried the ark
round Jericho, did it with impunity. For it was not
their own work, but God's, which they executed, and
that, too, from his express commandment."

In tliQ following chapter he again cites Isa. 1 :
11-14, as proof that the Sabbath is abolished.
He will, however, presently explain this text
which he has so many times used against the
Sabbath, and show that it actually has no such
bearing. In the meantime he will again declare
that Joshua did not break the Sabbath, and hav-
ing done this he will find it in order again to as-
sert that "the Sabbath was actually then broken
by Joshua." In his fourth book against Marcion,
chapter xii., he discusses the question whether
Christ as Lord of the Sabbath had the right to
annul the Sabbath, and whether in his life he
did actually violate it. To do this he again cites
the case of Jericho, and actually afHrms that the
Sabbath w^as broken on that occasion, and at the
same time denies it. Thus he says : —

"If Christ interfered with the Sabbath, he simply
acted after the Creator's example ; inasmuch as in the
siege of the city of Jericho the carrying around the walls
of the ark of the covenant for eight days running, and
therefore on a Sabbatli day, actually annulled the Sab-
bath, by the Creator's command — according to the opinion
of those who think this of Christ [Luke G :l-5] in their
ignorance that neither Christ nor the Creator violated
iTie Sabbath, as wo shall by-and-by show. And yet the
Sabbatli was actually ihvn broken by Joshua, so that the
present charge might be alleged also against Christ."

TESTIMONY' OF TFllTULLfAX. 7/.

The Sabbath was not violated in the case of
Jericho, and yet It certainly was there violated !
Tertullian adds that if Christ hated the Sabbath
he was in this like the Creator himself, who
declares [Isa. 1 : 14] that he hates it. He forgets
that the Creator has expressly declared his great
regard for the Sabbath by this very prophet
[chap. 58:13, 14], and overlooks the fact that
what God hates is the hypocritical conduct of
the people as set forth in Isaiah 1. In his fourth
book against Marcion, chapter xvi., Christ is
mentioned as the Lord of the Sabbath, but noth-
ing is said bearing upon Sabbatic obligation. In
chapter xxx., of this same book, he alludes to the
cure wrought by Christ upon the Sabbath day,
mentioned in Luke 13 : 11-lG, and says, " When,
therefore, he did a work according to the condi-
tion prescribed by the law, he affirmed, instead
of breaking, the law," etc.

In the twelfth chapter of this book, however,
he asserts many things relative to Christ. He
says that the disciples in rubbing out the ears of
corn on the Sabbath *'had violated the holy
day. Christ excuses them and became their
accomplice in breaking the Sabbath." He argues
that as the Sabbath from the beginning, which
he here places at the fall of the manna though
elsewhere dating it from the creation, had never
been designed as a day of fasting, the Saviour
did right in justifying the act of the disciples in
the cornfield. And he terms the example of
David a "colorable precedent" to justify the
eating of the corn. But though he represents
the vSaviour as " annulling the Sabbath " at this
time, he also asserts that in this very case " he
maintains the honor of the Sabbath as a day

78 TESTIMONY OF TUE FATHERS.

•which is to be free from gloom rather than from
work." He justifies the Saviour in his acts of
liealing on the Sabbath, declaring that in this
he was doing that which the Sabbath law did
not forbid. Tertullian next affirms precisely the
reverse of many things which he has advanced
against the Sabbath, and even answers his own
objections against it. Thus he says : — •

" In order that he might, whilst allowing that am omit
of work which he was about to perform for a sonl, remiixl
them what works the law of the Sabbath forbade— even
human works ; and what it enjoined — even divine works,
which might be done for the benefit of any soul, he was
called ' Lord of the Sabbath ' because he maintained the
Sabbath as his own institution. Now, even if he had
annulled the Sabbath, he would have had the right to do
so, as being its Lord, [and] still more as he who instituted
it. But he did not utterly destroy it, although its Lord,
in order that it might henceforth be plain that the Sab-
bath was not broken by the Creator, even at tlie time
when the ark was carried aroiuid Jericho. For that was
really God's work, which he commanded himself, and
which he had ordered for the sake of the lives of his
servants when exposed to the perils of war." Book iv.
chap. xii.

In this ]mragraph Tertullian explains the law
of God in the clearest manner. He shows beyond
all dispute that neither Joshua nor Christ ever
violated it. He also declares that Christ did not
abolish the Sabbath. In the next sentence he
goes on to answer most admirably his own re-
peated perversion of Isaiah 1:13, 14, and to
contradict some of his own serious errors. Listen
to him : —

" Now, although he has in a certain place expressed an
aversion of Sabbaths, by calling them * yonr Sahhatlis,'
reckoning them as men's Sabbaths, not his own, because
they Avere celebrated without the fear of Cod by a people
full of ini(iuities, and loving CJod 'with the lip, not the

TESTIMONY OF TEKTULLIAN. 79

heart,' lie has yet put his own Sabbatlis (those, that
is, which were kept according to his prescription) in a
different position ; for by the same prophet, in a later
passage, he declares them to be ' true, delightful, and
inviolable.' [Isa 58 : 13 ; 5G:2.] Thus Christ did not
at all rescind the i^ahhaih : he kept the law thereof, and
both in the former case did a work which was beneficial
to the life of his disciples (for he indulged them with the
relief of food when they were hungry), and in the present
instance cured the withered hand ; in each case intimat-
ing ])y facts, ' I came not to destroy the law, but to fid-
fill it,' although Marcion has gagged his mouth by this
word,"

Here Tertullian shows that God did not hate
his own Sabbath, but only the hypocrisy of those
who professed to keep it. He also expressly de-
clares that the Saviour " did not at all rescind the
Sabbath." And now that he has his hand in, lie
will not cease till he has testified to a noble Sab-
batarian confession of faith, ])]acing its origin at
creation, and perpetuating the institution with
divine safeguards and additional sanctity. More-
over he asserts that Christ's adversary [Satan]
would have had him do this to some other days,
a heavy blow as it happens upon those who in
modern times so stoutly maintain that he conse-
crated the first day of the week to take tlie place
of the Creator's rest-day. Listen again to Ter-
tullian, who continues as follows : —

"For even in the case before us he fulfilled the law,
while interpreting its condition ; [moreover,] lie exhibits
in a clear light the dilleront kinds of work, while doing
what the law excepts from the sacredness of the Sabbath,
[and] while imparting to the Sabbath day itself, whicli
from the hc^finniiifj had been consecrated by the lienediction
of the Fatiier, an additional sanctity by his own beneficent
action. For he furnished to this day divine safeguards, —
.a course which his adversary would have pursued for some
other days, to avoid honoring the Creator's Sabbath, and
restoring to the Sabbath the works which were proper for

iC TKSTIMONY OF TIIL i'ATlllCR.S.

it. Sinco, in like manner, the prophet Elishn, on this clay
restored to life the dead son of the Shunammite woman,
you see, O Pliariseo, and yon too, 0 Marcion, how that
it was [proper employment] for the Creator's Sabbaths of
old to do good, to save life, not to destroy it ; how that
Christ introduced nothing new, which was not after the
example, the gentleness, the mercy, and the prediction
also of the Creator. For in this very example he fulfills
the prophetic announcement of a specific healing : ' The
weak hands are strengthened,' as were also ' the feeble
knees ' in the sick of the palsy." — Tertullian against Mar-
cion, b. iv. chap. xii.

Tertullian mistakes in his reference to the
Shunammite woman. It was not tlie Sabbath day
on which she went to the prophet. 2 Kings 4 :
2o. But in the last three paragraphs quoted
from him, which in his work form one continuous
statement, he affirms many important truths
which are worthy of careful enumeration. They
are as follows : —

1. Christ, in determinirig what should, and
what should not, be done on the Sabbath, "was
called ^ Lord of the Sabbath,' because he main-
tained the Sabbath as his own institution."

2. " The Sabbath was not broken by the Cre-
ator, even at the time when the ark was carried
around Jericho."

3. The reason why God expressed his aversion
to " your Sabbaths," as though they were " men's
Sabbaths, not his own," was " because they were
celebrated without the fear of God, by a people
full of iniquities." See Isa. 1:13, 14.

4. "By the same prophet [Isa. 58:13; 56:2],
he declares them [the Sabbaths] to be ' true and
delightful and inviolable.' "

5. " Thus Christ did not at all rescind the Sab-
bath."

G. " lie kept tlic law tlicroof "

TESTi.MUNV 01 TKJITULLIAN. ^l

7. " Tlic Sabbath day itself, which from tlic V>o-
ginning had been consecrated by the benediction
of the Father." Thiy language expressly assigns
the origin of the Sabbath to the act of the Cre-
ator at the close of the first week of time.

8. Christ imparted to the Sabbath " an addi-
tional sanctity by his own beneficent action."

9. " He furnished to this day divine safeguards,
— a course which his adversary would have pur-
sued for some other days, to avoid honoring the
Creator's Sabbath, and restoring to the Sabbath
the works which were proper for it."

This last statement is indeed very remarkable.
Christ furnished "tlie Creator's Sabbath," the
seventh day, with " divine safeguards." His ad-
versary (the adversary of Christ is the devil)
would have had this course " pursued for some
other days." That is to say, the devil would
have been pleased had Christ consecrated some
other day, instead of adding to the sanctity of
his Father's Sabbath. What Tertullian says that
the devil would have been pleased to have Christ
do, that our first-day friends nov.^ assert that he
did do in the establishment of what they call the
Christian Sabbath ! Such an institution, how-
ever, was never heard of in the daj^s of the so-
called Christian fathers. . Notwithstanding Ter-
tuUian's many erroneous statements concerning
the Sabbath and the law, he has here borne a no-
ble testimony to the truth, and this completes his
words.

Testimony of the Fathers. 6

OU TESTIMONY OF THE FATIiEKS,

CHAPTER VIII.

Fabian — Origcu — Ilippolytus — Novatian. ^

TESTIMONY OF THE EPISTLES AND DECREES OF
FOPE FABIAN.

This man was bishop of Rome from A. D. 230
to A. D. 250. The letters ascribed to Fabian were
probably written at a considerably later date.
We quote them, however, at the very point of
time wherein they claim to have been written.
Their testimony is of little importance, but they
breathe the self-important spirit of a Roman
bishop. We quote as follows : —

^' You ought to know what is being done in things sa-
cred in the church of Rome, in order that, by following
her example, ye may be found to be true children of her
who is called your mother. Accordingly, as we have re-
ceived the institution from our fathers, we maintain seven
deacons in the city of Rome, distributed over seven dis-
tricts of the state, who attend to the services enjoined on
them week by week, and on the Lord's days, and the sol-
emn festivals," etc. — Epidle First.

This pope is said to have made the following
decree, which contains the only other reference to
the so-called Lord's day to be found in the writ-
ings attributed to him : —

" We decree that on each Lord's day the oblation of
the altar sliould be made by all men and women in bread
and wine, in order that by means of these sacriiices tliey
may be released from the burden of tJicir sins." — Ikcrcea
of Fahian, b. v. chap. vii.

In these quotations wo see. that tlie Roman
church is made tlic mother of all cluirches, and
also that the Roman bishop thinks himself the

TESTIMONY OF OllIGEN-. 83

rightful ruler over all Christian people. And it
is in fit keeping with these features of the great
apostasy that the pope, instead of pointing sinful
men to the sacrifice made on Calvary, should "de-
cree that on each Lord's day" every person should
ofier an " oblation " of " bread and wine " on the
altar, " that by means of these sacrifices they
may be released from the burden of their sins " !

TESTIMONY OF ORIGEN.

Origen was born about A. D. 185, probably at
Alexandria in Egypt. He was a man of immense
learning, but unfortunately adopted a spiritual-
izing system in the interpretation of the Script-
ures that was the means of flooding the church
with many errors. He wrote during the first
half of the third century. I have careful l}^ ex-
amined all the writings of every Christian writer
preceding the council of Nice with the single
exception of Origen. Some of his works, as yet,
I have not been able to obtain. While, there-
fore, I give the entire testimony of every other
father on the subject of inquiry, in his case I am
unable to do this. But I can give it with suffi-
cient fullness to present him in a just light. His
iirst reference to the Sabbath is a denial that it
should bo literally understood. Thus he says : —

''There arc countless multitudes of believers who, al-
though unable to unfold methodically and clearly the
results of their spiritual understanding, are nevertheless
most firmly persuaded that neither ought circumcision to
be understood literally, nor the rest of the Sabbath, nor
the pouring out of the blood of an animal, nor that
answers were given by God to Moses on these points.
And this method of apprehension is undoubtedly sug-
gested to the minds of all by the power of the Holy
(Spirit." — Dc rrincipils, b. ii. chap. vii.

61 TESTIMONY OF THE FATHERS.

Origen asserts that the spiritual interpretation
of the Scriptures whereby their literal meaning
is set aside is something divinely inspired ! But
when this is accepted as the truth who can tell
what they mean by what they say ?

In the next chapter he quotes Isa. 1 : 13, 14,
but with reference to the subject of the soul and
not to that of the Sabbath. In chapter xi., al-
luding again to the hidden meaning of the things
commanded in the Scriptures, he asserts that
when the Christian has " returned to Christ " he
will, amongst other things enumerated, " see also
the reasons for the festival days, and holy days,
and for all the sacrifices and purifications." So
it seems that Origen thought the spiritual mean-
ing of the Sabbath, which he asserted in the
place of the literal, was to be known only in the
future state !

In book iv. chapter i., he quotes Col. 2 : IG, but
gives no exposition of its meaning. But having
asserted that the things commanded in the law
were not to be understood literally, and having
intimated that their hidden meaning cannot be
known until the saints arc with Christ, he pro-
ceeds in section 17 of this chapter to prove that
the literal sense of the law is impossible. One of
the arguments by which he proves the point is,
that men were commanded not to go out of their
houses on the Sabbath. He thus quotes and
comments on Ex. IG : 29 : —

" ' Ye shall sit, every one in your dwellings ; no one
shall move from his place on the Sabbath day,' which
l)recept it is impossible to observe literally ; for no man
can sit a whole day so as not to move from the place
where he sat down." Origen quotes a certain Samaritan
who declares that one must not change his posture on the

TESTIMONY OF ORIGEN. 85

Sabbath, and he adds, "■ Moreover the injunction which
runs, 'Bear no burden on the Sabbath day,' seems to me
an impossibility."

This argument is framed for the pur))ose of
proving that the Scriptures cannot be taken in
their literal sense. But had he quoted the text
correctly there would be no force at all to his
argument. They must not go out to gather
manna, but were expressly commanded to use the
Sabbath for holy convocations, that is, for relig-
ious assemblies. Ley. 23 : 3. And as to the
burdens mentioned in Jer. 17 : 21-27, they are
sufficiently explained by Neh. 13:15-22. Such
reasons as these for denying the obvious, simple
signification of what God has commanded, arc
worthy of no confidence. In his letter to Afri-
canus, Origen thus alludes to the Sabbath, but
without further remarking upon it : —

"You will find the law about not bearing a b\irden on
the Sabbath day in Jeremiah as well as in Moses."

Though these allusions of Origen to the Sab-
bath are not in themselves of much importance,
we give them all, that his testimony may be
presented as fully as possible. His next mention
of the Sabbath seems from the connection to re-
late to Paul : —

" Was it impious to abstain from corporeal circumcision,
and from a literal Sabbatlr, and literal festivals, and lit-
eral new moons, and from clean and unclean meats, and
to turn the mind to the good and true and spiritual law
of God," etc. — Origen against Celsus, b. ii. chap. vii.

We shall soon get his idea of the true Sabbath
as distinguished from the " literal " one. He gives
the following reason for the *• literal Sabbath"
among the Hebrews : —

"In order that there mi^lit be leisure to listen to their

8G TESTIMONY OF THE FATHERS.

sacred laws, tiie days termed ' Sabbath,' and the other
festivals which existed among them, were instituted."
Book iv. chap. xxxi.

What Origen mentions as the reason for the
institution of the Sabbath is in fact only one of
its incidental benefits. The real reason for its
institution, viz., that the creation of the heavens
and the earth should be remembered, he seems
to have overlooked because so literally expressed
in the commandment. Of God's rest-day he thxis
speaks : —

"AVith respect, however, to the creation of the world,
and the 'rest [Sahhatisrnou] which is reserved after it for
the people of God,' the subject is extensive, and mystical,
and profound, and difficult of explanation." Book v.
chap. lix.

Origen's next mention of the Sabbath not only
places the institution of the Sabbath at the cre-
ation, but gives us some idea of his " mystical '*
Sabbath as distinguished from ''a literal" one.
Speaking of the Creator s rest from the six days'
work he thus alludes to Cclsus : —

" For he [Celsus] knows nothing of the day of the Sab-
bath and rest of God, ivliich folluivs the completion of tJte
tvorlcVs creation, »,nd which lads during the duration of the
ivorld, and in which all those will keep festival with God
v/ho have done all their works in their six days, and who,
because they have omitted none of their duties, will as-
cend to the contemplation [of celestial things], and to the
assembly of righteous and blessed beings." Book vi.
chap. Ixi.

Here we get an insight into Origen's mystical
Sabbath. It began at creation, and will continue
while the world endures. To those who follow
the letter it is indeed only a weekly rest, but to
those who know the truth it is a perpetual Sab-
bath, enjoyed by God during all the days of time.

TESTIMONY OF ORIGEN. S7

and entered by believers eitlier at conversion or
at death. And this last thought perhaps explains
why he said before that the reasons for days ob-
served by the Hebrews would be understood
after this life.

But last of all we come to a mention of the
so-called Lord's day by Origen. As he has a
mystical or perpetual Sabbath like some of the
earlier fathers, in which, under pretense of keep-
ing every day as a Sabbath, they actually labor
on every one, so has he also, like what we have
found in some of them, a Lord's day which is not
merely one definite day of the week, but v/hich
embraces every day, and covers all time. Here
are his words :—

"For 'to keep a feast,' a3 one of the wise men of
Greece has well said, * is nothing else than to do one's
duty ;' and that man truly celebrates a feast who does his
duty and prays always, offering up continually bloodless
Eacrifices in prayer to God, That therefore seems to me
a most noble saying of Paul, * Ye observe days, and
months, and times, and years. I am afraid of you, lest
I have bestowed upon you labor in vain.'

" If it be objected to us on this subject that we ourselves
are accustomed to observe certain days, as, for example,
the Lord's day, the Preparation, the Passover, or Pente-
cost, I have to answer, that to the perfect Cliristian, who
is ever in his thoughts, words, and deeds, serving his
natui-al Lord, God the Word, all his days are the Lord's^
and he is always keeping the Lord's day." Book viii., close
of chapter xxi. and beginning of chapter xxii.

With respect to what he calls the Lord's day,
Origen divides his brethren into two classes, as
he had before divided the people of God into two
classes with respect to the Sabbath. One class are
the imperfect Christians, who content themselves
with the literal day ; the other are the perfect
Christians, whose Lord's day embraces all the

86 TESTIMONY OF THE FATHERS.

days of their life. Undoubtedly Origen reckoned
himself one of the perfect Christians. His ob-
servance of the Lord's day did not consist in the
elevation of one day above another, for he count-
ed them all alike as constituting one perpetual
Lord's day, the very doctrine which we found in
Clement of Alexandria, who was Origen's teacher
in his early life. The keeping of the Lord's day
with Origen as with Clement embraced all the
days of his life, and consisted according to Ori-
gen in serving God in thought, word, and deed,
continually; or as expressed by Clemejit, one
"keeps the Lord's day when he abandons an
evil disposition, anc} assumes that of the Gnostic."

These things prove that Origen did not count
Sunday as the Lord's day to be honored above
the other days as a divine memorial of the resur-
rection, for he kept the Lord's day during every
day in the week. Nor did he hold Sunday as
the Lord's day to be kept as a day of abstinence
from labor, while all the other days were days of
business, for whatever was necessary to keeping
Lord's day he did on every day of the week.

As to the imperfect Christians who honored a
literal day as the Lord's day, Origen shows what
rank it stood in hy associating it with the Prep-
aration, the Passover, and the Pentecost, all of
which in this dispensation are mere church in-
stitutions, and none of them days of abstinence
from labor. The change of the Sabbath from the
seventh day to the first, or the existence of the
so-called Christian Sabbath was in Origen's time
absolutely unknown.

TESTIMONY OF IHPrOIATlJS, BISHOP OF TORTUS.

Hippolytas, who v/ixii bishop of Porta.j, near

TESTIMONY OF IIIPPOLYTUS. 89

Kome, wrote about A. D. 230. It is evident from
his testimony that he believed the Sabbath was
made by God's act of sanctifying the seventh day
at the beginning. He held that day to be the
type of the seventh period of a thousand years.
Thus he says : —

''And COOO years must needs be accomplished, in order
that the Sabbath may come, the rest, the holy day on
which God rested from all his works. For the Sabbath
is the type and emblem of the future kingdom of the
saints, when they shall reign with Christ, when he comes
from Heaven, as John says in his Apocalypse : for a day
with the Lord is as a thousand years. Since, then, in
six days God made all things, it follows that six thousand
years must be fulfilled." — Cojnmentaric^ on Various Boohs
of Bcripture. Sect. 4, on Daniel.

The churches of Ethiopia have a series of
Canons, or church rules, which they attribute to
this father. Number thirty-three reads thus : —

"That commemoration should be made of the faithful
dead every day, with the exception of the Lord's day." -

The church of Alexandria have also a series
which they ascribe to him. The thirty-third is
thus given : —

'' Of the Atalmsas (the oblation), which they shall pre-
sent for those who are dead, that it be not done on the
Lord's day."

The thirty- eighth one has these words : —

"Of the night on which our Lord Jesus Christ rose.
That no one shall sleep on that night, and wash himself
with water."

These are the only things in Hippolytus that
can be referred to the Sunday festival. Prayers
and offerings for the dead, which we find some
fifty years earlier in Tertullian, are, according to
Hippolytus, lawful on every day but the so-called

UO TESTIMONY OF THE FATHERS.

Lord's day. They grew up with the Sunday
festival, and are of equal authority with it. Ter-
tullian, as we have already observed, tells us
frankly that there is no scriptural authority for
the one or the other, and that they rest on cus-
tom and tradition alone.

TESTIMONY OF NOVATIAN, A ROMAN PRESBYTER.

Novatian, who wrote about A. D. 250, is ac-
counted the founder of the sect called Caihari,
or Puritans. He tried to resist some of the
gross corruptions of the church of Rome. He
wrote a treatise on the Sabbath, which is not
extant. There is 1:10 reference to Sunday in any
of his writings. In his treatise " On the Jewish
Meats," he speaks of the Sabbath thus : —

''But how perverse are the Jews, and remote from the
iindorstandiiig of their law, I have fully shown, as I be-
lieve, in two former letters, wherein it was absolutely
proved that they are ignorant of what is the true circum-
cision, and what the true Sabbath." Chapter i.

If we contrast the doctrine of the Pharisees
concerning the Sabbath with the teaching of the
Saviour, or with that of Isaiah in his fifty- eighth
chapter, we shall not think Novatian far from the
truth in his views of the Jewish people. In
his treatise "Concerning the Trinity" is- the fol-
lowing allusion to the Sabbath : —

" For in the manner that as man he is of Abraham, so
also as God he is before Abraham himself. And in the
same manner as he is as man the ' Son of David,' so as
God he is proclaimed David's Lord. And in the same
manner as he was made as man 'under the law,' so as
God ho is declared to be ' Lord of the Sabbath.' " Chap-
ter xi.

These are the only references to the Sabbath
in wliat remains of the writings of Novatian. He

TESTIMONY OF CYrRTAX. 91

makes the following strikincr remarks conc^^„- ^
the moral law :— °

" The law was glTen to the children of Israel for this
purpose, that they might profit by it, and return to those
virtuous manners^ •which, although they liave received them
from their fathers, they had corrupted in Egypt by reason
of their intercourse with a barbarous people. Finally,
also, those ten commandments on the tables teach nothiwj
new, but remind them of ichat had hc^n obliterated — that
righteousness in them, which had been put to sleep,
might revive again as it were by the afflatus of the law,
after the manner of a lire [nearly extinguished]." — On the
Jewish Meats, chap. iii.

It is therefore certain that in the judgment of
Novatian, the ten commandments enjoined noth-
ing that was not sacredly regarded by the patri-
archs before that Jacob went down into Egypt.
It follows, therefore, that in his opinion the Sab-
bath was made, not at the fall of the manna, but
when God sanctified the seventh da}^, and that
lioly men fi-om the earliest ages observed it.
The Sunday festival with its varied names and
titles he never mentions.

CHAPTER IX.

Cyprian— Dion J sius of Alexandria--Analolius— Commodianus
— Arclielaus.

TESTIMONY OF CYPEIAN, BISHOP OF CARTHAGE.

Cyprian wrote about A. D. 255. I find only
two references to Sunday in his works. The
first is in his thirty- second epistle (the thirty-
eighth of the Oxford edition), in which he says
of one Aurelius that '■' he reads on the Lord's day "
for him. But in the second instance he defines

92 TESTIMONY OF THE FATHERS.

the meaning of the term, and gives evidence in
support of his application of it to the first day of
the vreek. He is arguing in behalf of infant bap-
tism, or rather in controverting the opinion that
baptism should be deferred till the child is eight
days old. Though the command to circumcise
infants when eight days of age is one of the chief
grounds of authority for infant baptism, yet the
time in that precept according to Cyprian does
not indicate the age of the child to be baptized,
but prefigures the fact that the eighth day is the
Lord's day. Thus he says : —

'* For in respect of the observance of the eighth day in
the Jewish circumcision of the tlesh, a sacrament was
given beforcliand in shadow and in usage ; but when
Christ came, it was fulfilled in truth. For because the
eighth day, that is, the first day after the Sabbath, was to
bo that on which the Lord should rise again, and should
quicken us, and give us circumcision of the Spirit, tlie
eighth day, that is, the first day after the Sabbath, and
the Lord's day, went before in the figure ; which figure
ceased when by and by the truth came, and spiritual cir-
cumcision was given to us." — Epititlc Iviii. sect. 4 ; in
the Oxford edition. Epistle Ixiv.

Circumcision is made to prove twin errors of
the great apostasy, infant haptisni and that the
eighth day is the Lord's day. But the eighth
day in the case of circumcision was not the day
succeeding the seventh, that is, the first day of
the week, but the eighth day of the life of each
infant, and therefore it fell on one day of the
week as often as upon anotlier. Such is the only
argument addressed by Cyprian for first-day
sacredness, and this one seems to have been bor-
rowed from Justin Martyr, who, as we have seen,
used it about one hundred years before him. It
is however quite as weighty as the argimicnt of
Clement of Alexandria, who adduced in its sup-

TESTIMONY OF DYONYSIUS. 9*3

port what lie calls a prophecy of the eighth day
out of the writings of the heathen philosopher
Plato ! And both are in the same rank with that
of Tertullian, who confessed that they had not
the authority of Scripture, but accepted in its
stead that of custom and tradition !

In his " Exhortation to Martyrdom," section 11,
Cyprian quotes the larger part of Matt. 24, and in
that quotation at verse 20, the Sabbath is men-
tioned, but he says nothing concerning that in-
stitution. In his " Testimonies against the Jews,"
book i., sections 9 and 10, he says " that the former
law which was given by Moses, was about to
cease," and that " a new law was to be given ; "
and in the conclusion of his " Treatise against the
Jews," section 11 0, he says " that the yoke of the
law was heavy which is cast ofi' by us," but it is
not certain that he meant to include in these
statements the precepts of the moral law.

TESTIMONY OF DIOXYSIUS, BISHOP OF ALEXANDRIA.

This father, who was one of Origen's disciples,
wrote about A. D. 2 CO. In the first canon of
his "Epistle to Bishop Basilides" he treats of
" the proper hour for bringing the fast to a close
on the day of Pentecost." He has occasion to
quote what the four evangelists say of the Sab-
bath and first-day in connection with the resur-
rection of Christ. But in doing this he adds not
one word expressive of first-day sacredness, nor
does he give it any other title than that of plain
"first day of the week." The seventh day is
simply called " the Sabbath." He also speaks of
" the preparation and the Sabbath " as the " last
two days " of a six days' fast, at the anniversary
of the week of Christ's death.

94 TESTIMONY OF THE FATIIEES.

TESTIMONY OF ANATOLIUS, BISHOP OF LAODICEA.

This father wrote ahout A. D. 270. He partic-
ipated in the discussion of the question whether
the festival of Easter, or passover, should be cele-
brated on the fourteenth day of the first month,
the same day on which the Jews observed the
passover, or whether it should be observed on the
so-called Lord's day next following. In this dis-
cussion he uses the term Lord's day, in his first
canon once, quoting it from Origen ; in his sev-
enth, twice; in his tenth, twice; in his eleventh,
four times ; in his twelfth, once ; in his sixteenth,
twice. These are all the instances in which he
uses the term. We quote such of them as shed
any light upon the meaning of it as used by him.
In his seventh canon he says : '' The obligation
of the Lord's resurrection binds to keep the pas-
chal festival on the Lord's day." In his tenth
canon he uses this language : " The solemn festi-
val of the resurrection of the Lord can be cele-
brated only on the Lord's day." And also " that
it should not be lawful to celebrate the Lord's
mystery of the passover at any other time but on
the Lord's day, on which the resurrection of the
Lord from death took place, and on which- rose
also for us the cause of everlasting joy. In his
eleventh canon he says : '* On the Lord's day was
it that light was shown to us in the beginning,
and now also in the end, the comforts of all pres-
ent and the tokens of all future blessings." In
his sixteenth canon he says : " Our regard for
the Lord's resurrection which took place on the
Lord's day will lead us to celebrate it on the
same principle."

The reader may bo curious to know why a

TESTIMONY OF ANATOLIUS. 95

controversy should liave arisen respecting tlie
proper day for the celebration of the passover in
the Christian church when no such celebration
had ever been commanded. • The explanation is
this : Tlie festival was celebrated solely on the
authority of tradition, and there were in this case
two directly conflicting traditions, as is fully
shown in the tenth canon of this father. One
party had their tradition from John the apostle,
and held that the paschal feast should be cele-
brated every }■ ear " whenever the fourteenth day
of the moon had come, and the lamb was sacri-
ficed by the Jews." But the other party had
their tradition from the apostles Peter and Paul
that this festival should not be celebrated on tbat
day, but upon the so-called Lord's day next fol-
lowing. And so a fierce controversy arose which
was decided in A. D. 325, by the council of Nice,
in favor of Saint Peter, who had on his side his
pretended successor, the powerful and crafty
bishop of Rome.

The term Lord's da-y is never applied to Sun-
day till the closing years of the second century.
And Clement, who is the first to make such an
application, represents the true Lord's day as
made up of every day of the Christian's life.
And this opinion is avowed by others after him.

But after we enter the third century the name
Lord's day is quite fref[uently' applied to San-
day. Tertullian, who lived at the epoch where
we first find this application, frankly declares
that the festival of Sunday, to which he gives
the name of Lord's day, had no Scriptural author-
ity, but that it was founded upon tradition. But
should not the traditions of the third century be
esteemed sufiicicnt authority for calling Sunday

Vh 'J'ES'J'LMONV OF THE FATIIKUS,

the Lord's day ? The very men of that century
who speak thus of Sunday strenuously urge the
observance of the feast of the passover. Shall
we accept this festival which they offer to us on
the authority of their apostolic tradition ? As if
to teach us the folly of adding tradition to the
Bible as a part of our rule of faith, it ha})pcns that
there are, even from the early part of the second
century, two directly conflicting traditions as to
what day should be kept for the passover. And
one party had theirs from Saint John, the other
had theirs from Saint Peter and Saint Paul !
And it is very remarkable that although each of
these parties claimed to know from one or the
other of these apostles that they had the right
day for the passover and the other had the wrong
one, there is never a claim by one of these fa-
thers that Sunday is the Lord's day because John
on the isle of Patmos called it such ! If men in
the second and third centuries were totally mis-
taken in their traditions respecting the passover,
as tliey certainly were, shall we consider the
traditions of the third century sufficient authori-
ty for asserting that the title of Lord's day be-
longs to Sunday by apostolic authority ?

TESTIMONY OF COMMODIANUS.

This person was a native of Africa, and does
not appear to have ever held any office in the
Christian church. He wrote about A. D. 270.
The only allusions made by him to the Sabbath
are in the following words addressed to the
Jews : —

'' There is not an unbelieving people snch as yours. O
evil men ! in eg many places, and so often rebuked by
the liiw of those who cry alomt. And the Lofty One do-

TESTIMONY OF COMMODTANUS. 97

spises your Sabbaths, and altogether rejects your uni-
versal monthly feasts according to law, that ye should
not make to him the commanded sacrifices ; who told you
to throw a stone for your offense. " — Instructions in Favor
of Christian Discipline, sect. 40.

This statement is very obscure, and there is
nothing in the connection that sheds any light
upon it= His language may have reference to
the ceremonial sabbaths, or it may include also
the Sabbath of the Lord. If it includes the Sab-
bath made for man it may be intended, like the
words of Isa. 1 : 13, 14, to rebuke the hypocrisy
of those who profess to keep it rather than to
condemn the institution itself.

He makes only one use of the term Lord's day,
and that is as obscure as is his reference to the
subject of the Sabbath. Here it is :^

" Neither dost thou fear the Lord, who cries aloud
with such an utterance ; even he who commands us to
give food even to our enemies. Look forward to thy
meals from that Tobias who always on every day shared
them entirely with the poor man. Thou seekest to feed
him, O fool, who feedeth thee again. Dost thou wish
that he should pre^Dare for me, who is setting before him
his burial? The brother oppressed with want, nearly
languishing away, cries out at the splendidly fed, and
with distended belly. What sayest thou of the Lord's
day ? If he have not placed himself before, call forth a
poor man from the crowd whom thou mayest take to thy
dinner. In the tablets is your hope from a Christ re-
freshed." Section 61.

Whether Commodianus meant to charge his
brethren to reheve the hungry on one day only
of the week, or whether he held to such a Lord's
day as that of Clement of Alexandria, Origen,
and others (namely, one that includes every day
of the life of him who refrains from sin), and so
would have his brethren imitate Tobias, who fed

Testimony of tho Fathers. T

98 TESTIMONY OF THE FATIIEUS.

the hungry every day, must be left undetermined.
He could not have believed that Sunday was the
Lord's day by divine appointment, for he refers
to the passover festival (which rests solely upon
the traditions and commandments of men) as
coming " once in the year " and he designates it
as " Easter that day of ours most blessed." Sec-
tion 75. The day of the passover was therefore
in his estimation the most sacred day in the
Christian church.

TESTIMONY OF ARCHELAUS, BISHOP OF CASCAR.

This person wrote about A. D. 277, or accord-
ing to other authorities he wrote not far from A.
D. 300. He flourished in Mesopotamia. What
remains of his writings is simply the record of
his " Disputation with Manes," the heretic. I do
not find that he ever uses the term " Lord's day."
He introduces the Sabbath and states his views
of it thus : —

"■ Moses, that ilhistrioiis eervant of God, committed to
those who wished to have the right vision, an emblem-
atic law, and alpo a real law. Thus, to take an example,
after God had made the world, and all things that are in
it, in the space of six days, he rested on the seventh day
from all his works ; by which statement I do not mean
to affirm that he rested because he was fatigued, but
that he did so as having brought to its perfection every
creature which he haa resolved to introduce. And yet
in the sequel it (the new law) says : ' My Father worketh
hitherto, and I work.' Does that mean, then, that he is
still making heaven, or sun, or man, or animals, or trees,
or any such thing ? Nay ; but the meaning is, that when
these visible objects were perfectly finished, he rested
from that kind of work ; while, however, he still contin-
ues to work at objects invisible with an inward mode of
action, and saves men. In like manner, then, the legis-
lator desires also that every individual among us should
be devoted unceasingly to this kind of work, even as

TESTIMONY OF ARCHELAUS. 99

God himself is ; and he enjoins lis consequently to rest
continuously from secular things, and to engage in no
worldly sort of work whatsoever ; and this is called our
Sabbath. This ho also added in the law, that nothing
senseless should be done, but that we should be careful
and direct our life in accordance with what is jiist and
righteous." Section 31.

These words appear to teach that he held to a
perpetual Sabbath, like Justin Martyr, TertuUian,
and others. Yet this does not seem possible, in-
asmuch as, unlike Justin, who despises what he
calls days of " idleness," this writer says that we
are " to engage in no worldly sort of work what-
soever; and this is called our Sabbath." It is
hardly possible that he couM hold it a wicked
thing to labor on one or all of the six working
days. Yet he either means to assert that it is
sinful to work on a single one of the days, or else
he asserts the perpetual obligation of that Sab-
bath which it is manifest he believed originated
when God set apart the seventh day, and which
he acknowledges on the authority of what "he
also added in the law." We shall shortly come
to his final statement, which seems clearly to
show that the second of these views was the one
held by this writer.

After showing in this same section that the
death penalty at the hand of the magistrate for
the violation of the Sabbath is no longer in force
because of forgiveness through the Saviour, and
after answering the objection of Manes in sec-
tions 40, 41, 42, that Christ in healing on the
Sabbath directly contradicted what Moses did to
those who in his time violated the Sabbath, he
states his views of the perpetuity of the ancient
Sabbat h in very clear language. Thus he say s : —

" Again, as to the assertion that the Sabbath has beeu

i 4^ t n i^

100 TESTIMONY OF THE FATHERS.

abolished, we deny that he has abolished it plainly
{plane) ; for he was himself also Lord of the Sabbath.
And this (the law's relation to the Sabbath) was like the
servant who has charge of the bridegroom's couch, and
who prepares the same with all carefulness, and does not
suffer it to be disturbed or touched by any stranger, but
keeps it intact against the time of the bridegroom's
arrival ; so that when he is come, the bed may be used
as it pleases himself, or as it is granted to those to use it
whom he has bidden enter along with him." Section 42.

Three things are plainly taught. 1. The law
sacredly guarded the Sabbath till the coming of
Christ. 2. When Christ came, he did not abolish
the Sabbath, for he was its Lord. 3. And the
whole tenor of this writer's language shows that
he had no knowledge of the change of the Sab-
bath in honor of Christ's resurrection, nor does
he even once allude to the first day of the week.

CHAPTER X.

Victorinus — Peter — Methodius — Lactantius — Poem on Gen-
esis— Cor elusion.

TESTIMONY OF VICTOKINUS, BISHOP OF PETAU.

This person wrote about A. D. 300. His bish-
opric was in Germany. Of his work on the
" Creation of the World," only a fragment is now
preserved. In the first section he speaks thus of
the sanctification of the seventh day : —

' ' God produced that entire mass for the adornment of
his majesty in six days ; on the seventh to which he con-
secrated it [some words are'here lost out of the text] with
a blessing. For this reason, therefore, because in the
septenary number of days both heavenly and earthly
things are ordered, in place of the beginning. I will
consider of this seventh day after the principle of all
matters pertaining to the number seven."

TESTIMONY OF VICTORINUS. 101

Vic tori nus, like some other of the fathers, held
that the " true and just Sabbath should be ob-
served in the seventh millenary." He believed
that the Sabbath was abolished by the Saviour.
He was in sympathy with the act of the church
of Rome in turning the Sabbath into a fast. He
held to a two days' weekly fast, as his words nec-
essarily imply. He would have men fast on the
sixth day to commemorate Christ's death, and
on the seventh, lest they should seem to keep the
Sabbath with the Jews, but on the so-called
Lord's day they were to g^o forth to then* bread
with giving of thanks. Thus he reasons : —

' ' On this day [the sixth] also, on account of the jjassion
of the Lord Jesus Christ, we make either a station to
God, or a fast. On the seventh day he rested from all
his works, and blessed it, and sanctified it. On the for-
mer day [the sixth] we are accustomed to fast rigorously,
that on the Lord's day we may go forth to our bread with
giving of thanks. And let the parasceve [the sixth day]
become a rigorous fast, lest we should appear to observe
any Sabbath with the Jews, which Christ himself, the
Lord of the Sabbath, says by his prophet that ' his soul
hateth ;' which Sabbath he in his body abolished, al-
though, however, he had formerly himself commanded
Moses that circumcision should not pass over the eighth
day, which day very frequently happens on the Sabbath,
as we read written in the gospel. Moses, foreseeing the
hardness of that people, on the Sabbath raised up his
hands, therefore, and thus fastened himself to a cross.
And in the battle they were sought for by the foreigners
on the Sabbath day, that they might be taken captive,
and, as if by the very strictness of the law, might be fash-
ioned to the avoidance of its teachings." Section 4.

These statements are in general of little con-
sequence, but some of them deserve notice. First,
we have one of the grand elements which con-
tributed to the abandonment of the Sabbath of
the Lord, viz., hatred toward the Jews for their

102 TESTIMONY OF THE FATHERS.

conduct toward Christ. Those who acted thus
forgot that Christ himself was the Lord of the
Sabbath, and that it was his institution and not
that of the Jews to which they were doing
despite. Secondly, it was the church of Rome
that turned the Sabbath into a fast one hundred
years before this, in order to suppress its observ-
ance, and Victorinus was acting under its in-
structions. Thirdly, we have a reference to the
so-called Lord's day, as a day of thanksgiving,
but no connection between it and the Sabbath is
indicated ; for in his time the change of the Sab-
bath had not been thought of He has other
reasons for neglecting the seventh day which
here follow : —

"And thus in the sixth psalm for the eighth day,
David asks the Lord that he would not rebuke him in his
anger, nor judge him in his fury ; for this is indeed the
eighth day of that future judgment, which will pass be-
yond the order of the sevenfold arrangement. Jesus
also, the son of Nave, the successor of Moses, himself
broke the Sabbath day ; for on the Sabbath day he com-
manded the children of Israel to go round the walls of
the city of Jericho with trumpets, and declare war against
the aliens, Matthias also, prince of Judah, broke the
Sabbath ; for he slew the prefect of Antiochus the king
of Syria on the Sabbath, and subdued the foreigners by
pursuing them. And in Matthew we read, that it is
written Isaiah also and the rest of his colleagues broke
the Sabbath — that that true and just Sabbath should be
observed in the seventh millenary of years. Wherefore
to those seven days the Lord attributed to each a thou-
sand years ; for thus went the warning : ' In mine eyes,

0 Lord, a thousand years are as one day. ' Therefore in
the eyes of the Lord each thousand of years is ordained,
for I find that the Lord's eyes are seven. Wherefore, as

1 have narrated, that true Sabbath will be in the seventh
millenary of years, when Christ with his elect shall roign."
Section 5.

This comj^letes the testimony of Victorinus.

TESTIMONY OF PETER. 103

He evidently held that the Sabbath originated
at the sanctification of the seventh day, but for
the reasons here given, the most of which are
trivial, and all of which are false, he held that it
was abolished by Christ. His argument from the
sixth psalm, and from Isaiah's violation of the
Sabbath, is something extraordinary. He had
an excellent opportunity to say that though the
seventh-day Sabbath was abolished, yet we have
the Christian Sabbath, or the Lord's day, to take
its place. But he shows positively that he knew
of no such institution ; for he says, " That true
and just Sabbath " will be "in the seventh mille-
nary of years."

TESTIMONY OF PETER, BISHOP OF ALEXANDRIA.

This father wrote about A. D. 806. In his
" Canon 15 " he thus sets forth the celebration of
the fourth, the sixth, and the first days of the
week : —

**No one shall find fault with us for observing the
fourth day of the week, and the preparation [the sixth
day], on which it is reasonably enjoined us to fast accord-
ing to the tradition. On the fourth day, indeed, because
on it the Jews took counsel for the betrayal of the Lord ;
and on the sixth, because on it he himself sufi'ered for us.
But the Lord's day we celebrate as a day of joy, because
on it he rose again, on which day we have received it for
a custom not even to bow the knee."

On this Balsamon, an ancient writer whose com-
mentary is appended to this canon, remarks that
this canon is in harmony with the 64th apostol-
ical canon, which declares " that we are not to
fast on the Sabbath, with one exception, the
great Sabbath [the one connected with the pass-
over], and to the 69th canon, which severely
punishes those who do not fast in the Holy Lent,

104 TESTIMONY OF THE FATHERS.

and on every fourth day of the week and day of
preparation." So it appears that they were
commanded by the canons to fast on the fourth
and sixth days of the week, and forbidden to do
this on the Sabbath and first-day.

Zonaras, another ancient commentator upon
the canons of Peter, gives us the authority upon
which these observances rest. No one of these
three days is honored by God's commandment.
Zonaras mentions the fasts on the fourth and
sixth days, and says no one will find fault with
these. But he deems it proper to mark Peter's
reason for the Lord's-day festival, and the nature
of that festival. Thus he says : —

" But on the Lord's day we ought not to fast, for it is
a day of joy for the resurrection of the Lord, and on it,
says he, we have received that we ought not even to bow
the knee. This word, therefore, is to be carefully ob-
served, ' we have received ' and ' it is enjoined upon us ac-
cording to the tradition.' For from hence it is evident
that long-established custom was taken for law. More-
over, the great Basil annexes also the causes for which it
was forbidden to bend the knee on the Lord's day, and
from the passover to Pentecost. "

The honors which were conferred upon this so-
called Lord's day are specified. They are two in
number. 1. It was " a day of joy," and therefore
not a day of fasting. 2. On it they " ought not
even to bow the knee." This last honor however
applied to the entire period of fifty days between
the passover and the Pentecost as well as to each
Sunday in the year. So that the first honor was
the only one which belonged to Sunday exclu-
sively. That honor excluded fasting, but it is
never said to exclude labor, or to render it sinful.
And the authority for these two first-day lionors
is frankly given. It is not the words of holy

TESTIMONY OF METHODIUS. 105

Scripture nor the commandment of God, but "it
is enjoined upon us according to the tradition.
For from hence it is evident that long-established
custom was taken for law." Such is the testi-
mony of men who knew the facts. In our days
men dare not thus acknowledge them, and there-
fore they assert that the fourth commandment
has been changed by divine authority, and that
it is sinful to labor upon the first day of the
week.

TESTIMONY OF METHODIUS, JBISHOP OF TYRE.

This father wrote about A. D. 308, and suffered
martyrdom in A. D. 312. A considerable portion
of his writings have come down to our time, but
in them all I find not one mention of the first
day of the week. He held to the perpetuity of
the ten commandments, for he says of the beast
with ten horns : —

" Moreover, the ten horns and stings which he is said
to have upon his heads are the ten opposites, O virgins,
to the decalogue, by which he was accustomed to gore
and cast down the souls of many, imagining and contriving
things in opposition to the law, ' Thou shalt love the
Lord thy God,' and to the other precepts which follow."
— Banquet of the Ten Virgins, Discourse viii. chap. xiii.

In commenting on the feast of tabernacles
(Lev. 23 : 39-43) he says :—

"These things being like air and phantom shadows,
foretell the resurrection and the putting up of our taber-
nacle that had fallen upon the earth, which at length, in
the seventh thousand of years, resuming again immortal,
we shall celebrate the great feast of true tabernacles in
the new and indissoluble creation, the fruits of the earth
having been gathered in, and men no longer begetting
and begotten, but God resting from the works of crea-
tion." Discourse ix. chap. i.

Methodius understood the six days of creation,

106 TESTIMONY OF THE FATHERS.

and the seventh day sanctified by the Creator, to
teach that at the end of 6000 years the great
day of joy shall come to the saints of God : —

"For since in six days God made the heaven and the
earth, and finished the whole world, and rested on the
seventh day from all his works which he had made, and
blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, so by a figure
in the seventh month, when the fruits of the earth have
been gathered in, we are commanded to keep the feast to
the Lord, which signifies that, when this world shall be
terminated ,at the seventh thousand years, when God
shall have completed the world, he shall rejoice in us."
Discourse ix. chap. i. sect. 4.

In the fifth chapter of this discourse he speaks
of the day of Judgment as " the millennium of
rest, which is called the seventh day, even the
true Sabbath." He believed that each day of
the first seven represented one thousand years,
and so the true Sabbath of the Lord sets forth
the final triumph of the saints in the seventh
period of a thousand years. And in his work
" On Things Created," section 9, he refers to this
representation of one day as a thousand years, and
quotes in proof of it Ps. 90 : 2, 4. Then he says : —

" For when a thousand years are reckoned as one day
in the sight of God, and from the creation of the world
to his rest is six days, so also to our time, six days are
defined, as those say who are clever arithmeticians.
Therefore, they say that an age of six thousand years ex-
tends from Adam to our time. For they say that the
Judgment will come on the seventh day, that is, in the
seventh thousand years."

The only weekly Sabbath known to Methodius
was the ancient seventh day sanctified by God in
Eden. He does not intimate that this divine in-
stitution has been abolished ; and what he says
of the ten commandments implies the reverse of
that, and he certainly makes no allusion to the

TESTIMONY OF LACTANTIUS. 107

festival of Sunday, which on the authority of
" custom " and " tradition " had been by so many
elevated above the Sabbath of the Lord.

TESTIMONY OF LACTANTIUS.

Lactantius was born in the latter half of the
third century, was converted about A. D. 815, and
died at Treves about A. d. 325. He was very
eminent as a teacher of rhetoric, and was intrust-
ed with the education of Crispus, the son of Con-
stantine. The writings of Lactantius are quite
extensive ; they contain, however, no reference
to the first day of the week. Of the Sabbath he
speaks twice. In the first instance he says that
one reason alleged by the Jews for rejecting
Christ was,

" That he destroyed the obligation of the law given by
Moses ; that is, that he did not rest on the Sabbath, but
labored for the good of men," etc. — Divine Institutes, b.
iv. chap. xvii.

It is not clear whether Lactantius believed
that Christ violated the Sabbath, nor whether he
did away with the moral law while teaching the
abrogation of the ceremonial code. But he bears
a most decisive testimony to the origin of the
Sabbath at creation : —

' ' God completed the world and this admirable work of
nature in the space of six days (as is contained in the
secrets of holy Scripture), and consecrated the seventh
day, on which he had rested from his works. But this
is the Sabbath day, which in the language of the Hebrews
received its name from the number, whence the seventh
is the legitimate and complete number." Book vii. chap.
xiv.

It is certain that Lactantius did not regard the
Sabbath as the memorial of the flight out of
Egypt, but as that of the creation of the heavens

108 TESTIMONY OF THE FATHERS.

and the earth. He also believed that the seven
days prefigured the seven thousand years of our
earth's history : —

*' Therefore, since all the works of God were completed
in six days, the world must continue in its present state
through six ages, that is, six thousand years. For the
great day of God is limited by a circle of a thousand
years, as the prophet shows, who says, ' In thy sight,
O Lord, a thousand years are as one day.' And as God
labored during those six days in creating such great
works, so his religion and truth must labor during these
six thousand years, while wickedness prevails and bears
rule. And again, since God, having i finished his works,
rested the seventh day and blessed it, at the end of the
six thousandth year all wickedness must be abolished
from the earth, and righteousness reign for a thousand
years ; and there must be tranquility and rest from the
labors which the world now has long endured." Book
vii. chap. xiv.

Thus much for Lactantius. He could not
have believed in first-day sacredness, and there
is no clear evidence that he held to the abroga-
tion of the Sabbath. Finally we come to a poem
on Genesis by an unknown author, but variously
attributed to Cyprian, to Yictorinus, to Tertul-
lian, and to later writers.

TESTIMONY OF THE POEM ON GENESIS.

" The seventh came, when God
At his works' end did rest, decrkeing it
Sacebd unto the coming ages' jots."

Lines 51-53.

Here again we have an explicit testimony to
the divine appointment of the seventh day to a
holy use while man was yet in Eden, the garden
of God. And this completes the testimony of
the fathers to the time of Cons tan tine and the
Council of Nice.

CONCLUSION. 109

One thing is everywhere open to the reader's
eye as he passes through these testimonies from
the fathers : they lived in what may with pro-
priety be called the age of apostatizing. The
apostasy was not complete, but it was steadily
developing itself. Some of the fathers had the
Sabbath in the dust, and honored as their weekly
festival the day of the sun, though claiming for
it no divine authority. Others recognize the
Sabbath as a divine institution which should be
honored by all mankind in memory of the crea-
tion, and yet at the same time they exalt above
it the festival of Sunday, which they acknowl-
edge had nothing but custom and tradition for
its support. The end may be foreseen : in due
time the Sunday festival obtained the whole
ground for itself, and the Sabbath was driven
out. Several things conspired to accomplish
this result : —

1. The Jews, who retained the ancient Sabbath,
had slain Christ. It was easy for men to forget
that Christ as Lord of the babbath had claimed
it as his institution, and to call the Sabbath a
Jewish institution which Christians should not
regard.

2. The church of Rome as the chief in the
work of apostasy took the lead in the earliest
effort to suppress the Sabbath by turning it into
a fast.

3. In the Christian church almost from the be-
ginning men voluntarily honored the fourth, the
sixth, and the first days of the week to commem-
orate the betrayal, the death, and the resurrection
of Christ, acts of respect in themselves innocent
enough.

4. But the first day of the week corresponded

110 TESTIMONY OF THE FATHERS.

to Uic widely observed heathen festival of the
sun, and it was therefore easy to unite the honor
of Christ with the convenience and worldly ad-
vantage of his people, and to justify the neglect
of the ancient Sabbath by stigmatizing it as a
Jewish institution with which Christians should
have no concern.

The progressive character of the work of apos-
tasy with respect to the Sabbath is incidentally
illustrated by what Giesler, the distinguished his-
torian of the church, says of the Sabbath and
first-day in his record of the first, the second,
and the third century. Of the first century he
says : —

" Whilst the Christians of Palestine, who kept the whole
Jewish law, celebrated of course all the Jewish festivals,
the heathen converts observed only the Sabbath, and, in
remembrance of the closing scenes of our Saviour's life,
the pasaover (1 Cor. 5 : G-8), though without the Jewish
superstitions, Gal, 4 : 10 ; Col. 2 : 16. Besides these the
Sunday as the day of our Saviour's resurrection (Acts 20 :
7 ; 1 Cor. 10 : 2 ; Rev. 1 : 10), ?; KvgcaKfj vfuga, was devot-
ed to religious worship." — Gieshr'n JEcde^iastical History f
vol. i. sect. 29, edition 1836.

Sunday having obtained a foothold, see how
the case stands in the second century. Here are
the words of Giesler again : —

" Both Sunday and the Sabbath were observed as festi-
vals ; the latter however without the Jewish superstitions
therewith connected." — Id. vol. i. sect. 52.

This time, as Giesler presents the case, Sunday
has begun to get the precedence. But when he
gives the events of the third century he drops
the Sabbath from his record and gives the whole
ground to the Sunday and the yearly festivals of
the church. Thus he says : —

CONCLUSION. Ill

**In Origen's time the Christians had no general festivals,
excepting the Sunday, the Parasceve (or preparation), the
passover, and the feast of Pentecost. Soon after, how-
ever, the Christians in Egypt began to observe the festi-
val of the Epiphany, on the sixth of January." — Id. vol.
1. sect. 70.

These three statements of Giesler, relating as
they do to the first, second, and third centuries,
are peculiarly calculated to mark the progress of
the work of apostasy. Coleman tersely states
this work in these words : —

" The observance of the Lord's day was ordered while
the Sabbath of the Jews was continued ; nor was the lat-
ter superseded until the former had acquired the same
solemnity and importance, which belonged, at first, to
that great day which God originally ordained and blessed.
. . . But in time, after the Lord's day was fully estab-
lished, the observance of the Sabbath of the Jews was
gradually discontinued, and was finally denounced as
heretical." — Ancient Cliristianity ExenipUfied, chap. xxvi.
sect. 2.

We have traced the work of apostasy in the
church of Christ, and have noted the combination
of circumstances which contributed to suppress
the Sabbath, and to elevate the first day of the
week. And now we conclude this series of tes-
timonies out of the fathers by stating the well-
known but remarkable fact, that at the very
point to which we are brought by these testimo-
nies, the emperor Constantine while yet, accord-
ing to Mosheim, a heathen, put forth the follow-
ing edict, A. D. 321, concerning the ancient Sun-
day festival : —

" Let all the judges and town people, and the occupa-
tion of all trades, rest on the venerable day of the sun ;
but let those who are situated in the country, freely and
at full liberty, attend to the business of agriculture ; be-
cause it often happens that no other day is so fit for sow-
ing corn and planting vines ; lest, the critical moment be-

112 TESTIMONY OF THE FATHERS.

ing let slip, men should lose the commodities granted by
Heaven."

By the act of a wicked man the heathen festi-
val of Sunday has now ascended the throne of
the Roman Empire. We cannot here follow its
history through the long ages of papal darkness
and apostasy. But as we close, we cite the words
of Mosheim respecting this law as a positive
proof that up to this time, as shown from the fa-
thers, Sunday had been a day of ordinary labor
when men were not engaged in worship. He
says of it : —

'' The first day of the week, which was the ordinary
and stated time for the pubhc assemblies of the Chris-
tians, was, in consequence of a peculiar law enacted by Con-
stantine, observed with greater solemnity than it had for-
merly been.'' — Mosheim, century 4, part ii. chap. iv.
sect. 5.

This law restrained merchants and mechanics,
but did not hinder the farmer in his work. Yet
it caused the day to be observed with greater
solemnity than formerly it had been. These
words are spoken with reference to Christians,
and prove that in Mosheim's judgment, as a histo-
rian, Sunday was a day on which ordinary labor
was customary and lawful with them prior to
A. D. 321, as the record of the fathers indicates,
and as many historians testify.

But even after this the Sabbath once more
rallied, and became strong even in the so-called
Catholic church, until the Council of Laodicea
A. D. 364 prohibited its observance under a griev-
ous curse. Thenceforward its history is princi-
pally to be traced in the records of those bodies
which the Catholic church has anathematized as
heretics.

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